Date of Award

Spring 2022

Degree Type

Thesis

Department

Moore School of Business

Director of Thesis

Dr. Feng Yeo

First Reader

Dr. Aaron Zimbelman

Second Reader

Dr. Aaron Zimbelman

Abstract

Several studies find that environmental reporting is significant to investors’ decision-making. Here, the effect of German and US-American cultures on nonprofessional investors’ judgments when given positive or negative environmental reports is examined. Two experiments were conducted, one with US students recruited locally and German participants recruited online and the other with all participants recruited online to ensure more similar samples. In both experiments, in line with previous research, environmental reporting has a significant impact on nonprofessional investors’ decision-making process. In addition, the first experiment shows that German nonprofessional investors are more likely to penalize firms for poor environmental ratings however this was not reflected in the second experiment. Further analysis conducted on the second experiment shows that, as compared to German nonprofessional investors, altruism is a stronger determinant of US-American nonprofessional investors’ reaction to good environmental reports. While other authors have conducted similar research on the effect of CSR information on nonprofessional investors, this thesis is unique because it explores the effect of culture.

First Page

1

Last Page

68

Rights

© 2022, Jackson M Nietert

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