Journal article

Green lies and their effect on intention to invest

  • Gatti, Lucia University of Applied Sciences and Arts of Southern Switzerland (SUPSI), Manno, Switzerland
  • Pizzetti, Marta Marketing Department, TBS Business School, Toulouse, France
  • Seele, Peter Ethics and Communication Law Center (ECLC), Facoltà di comunicazione, cultura e società, Università della Svizzera italiana, Svizzera
  • 2021
Published in:
  • Journal of business research. - 2021, vol. 127, p. 228-240
English The article explores the consequences of greenwashing deceptions on intention to invest. It analyses whether the presence of a greenwashing lie to stakeholders is detrimental to intention to invest. When a company greenwashes, it deliberately deceives stakeholders about its environmental commitment. Our experimental results suggest that greenwashing has a greater negative impact on intention to invest than a corporate misbehaviour which is unrelated to a deceptive communication. In order to understand how different forms of greenwashing may affect intention to invest, we develop a typology of greenwashing deceptions, based on the variety of greenwashing cases that have emerged recently. The results show that individuals are less inclined to invest in a company that falsifies its claims (falsification) and which engages in manipulative business practices (deceptive manipulation), as compared to a company that instrumentally selects which information to disclose (information selection) or tries to obscure misbehaviours through publicizing its good business practices (attention diversion).
Language
  • English
Classification
Economics
Other electronic version

Versione pubblicata

License
CC BY-NC-ND
Open access status
green
Identifiers
  • ARK ark:/12658/srd1320639
Persistent URL
https://n2t.net/ark:/12658/srd1320639
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