Islamic worldview, social consciousness, and socially responsible investment

Abstract

We conducted a scenario-based survey and examine whether and how professional accountants and junior business executives' socially responsible investment (SRI) decisions are influenced by their intrinsic Islamic religiosity measured by the Islamic worldview in the context of a profitable firm that is alleged by the media to have employed child labour under hazardous conditions in Pakistan. Our findings show that professionals' Islamic worldview is positively associated with their SRI decisions, and it is mediated by their social consciousness. Our results further show that social consciousness correlates to how they perceive media allegations as relevant in making decisions. We demonstrate that the conventional theory of accounting, which suggests that considerations of risk and return primarily drive investing decisions, does not always hold true. Our findings demonstrate that professionals are guided by their Islamic worldview in making SRI decisions that transcend those with profit-maximizing motives with a focus on a risk-return trade-off.