Kyoko Sakuma
Université Libre de Bruxelles, Solvay Brussels School of Economics and Management
Behavior, strategy or company attitude? Decision-relevant contexts of responsible investment (SRI) managers
Kyoko Sakuma is Doctoral Research Fellow at Solvay Brussels School of Economics and Management (SBS-EM), Université Libre de Bruxelles since October 2006. Her thesis deals with the knowledge generation by Sustainable and Responsible Investment (SRI) managers, particularly when they face with companies in different cultural zones. The thesis subject was triggered by her professional experience of analyzing and evaluating Japanese and Asian companies in a variety of sustainable investment methodologies.
Kyoko worked for Vigeo, a leading European SRI rating agency from 2001 till 2007 on a data base research and a propriety research for one asset manager. Since 2007, she is contract Senior Consultant for Vigeo on the proprietary research. Before joining the SRI field, Kyoko was a government affaire consultant and researcher in the areas of corporate governance and EU financial integration issues in several international institutions. Kyoko has a MBA from SBS-EM, and a M.P.P. from Georgetown University, Washington D.C.
Behavior, strategy or company attitude? Decision-relevant contexts of responsible investment (SRI) managers
Despite an increasing interest in standardizing the corporate Environment, Social and Governance (ESG) information, relatively little is known how sustainable and responsible (SRI) managers understand the operating conditions of companies that are relevant to their decisions. The paper explored the way in which SRI managers who invest in different geographic zones regard the operating conditions of companies which is directly relevant to their investment decisions (decision relevant context). The results of the analysis of the interview data unraveled that experienced SRI managers saw the decision relevant context differently from the academics. They recognized the behavioral pattern of companies as one integrated management quality. This contrasted with SRI managers with short years of experience, who understood the management quality as relative attitude to a sector in the segmentation of political, regulatory and cultural context and E,S,G contexts. The paper suggests the ESG standardization may only benefit less experienced managers and proposes further research.