Browsing by Author "Nieminen, Tuuli"

The objective of my thesis is to portray small investors' views on ethical investing. The study material consists of 427 writings collected from Internet's Finnish investment discussion web pages. The focus of the study is on small investors' perceptions and on the methods they use. I examine whether investors are willing to put time and effort to ensure ethical issues, and the challenges and obstacles they confront. Furthermore, I study investors' views on ethical investments profit making possibilities compared to ordinary investing. Small investors prefer stocks and funds, and thus I take a closer look at these types of investments. As a method, ethical investors prefer negative screening. Their motive to invest ethically is the good feeling they get. Small investors define ethical investing based on their own, individual values. By using qualitative research methods I discovered four themes that are important reasons to invest ethically. These themes are financial profits, the environment, supporting domestic production and responsibility to take care of other people. Only few investors are willing to sacrifice profits for ethics if needed. Some investors defined ethical investing as aiming for best financial profits possible, without taking other issues into consideration. Environment itself is considered as important, but also because ignoring environmental issues has a negative impact on profits. Investors prefer domestic companies' stocks and are worried that companies move production to foreign countries. In decision-making, investors consider future generations, especially their own offspring. Ethical investing is considered as challenging and time-taking. They also find that there is a lack of ethical investment products and it is difficult to find objective information. In addition to interest towards ethical investing, there were different attitudes that characterized the investors. Neutral investors concentrate on facts and they consider ethical issues if they have an impact on profits. Orthodox investors believe that ethics do not belong to investing. Unethical investors are experimental and they believe that unethical investments provide high returns.