SCORE rapportserie

This is one of five reports of a series of empirical studies aiming to map out the actors found around different products and explore if and in which ways these actor attempt to shape the product. The studies are part of the Score research program Organizing markets. This working paper is about the actors around ethical mutual funds. An ethical mutual fund is, in several senses, a dual product. Firstly, a mutual fund - weather it is categorized as ethical or not - is both a product and a service. The consumer pays for shares of a collection of securities and the management of these. In this working paper it is shown how the duality of ethical mutual funds is continuously upheld in various ways. The reification of the duality concerns the separation of the economic and the ethical, something which is reflected in the legal framework as well as the marketing of the ethical mutual funds. Ethical mutual funds are to both make capital grow and contribute to a better world. The fund company who make the selection of what shares of which companies are to be included in the fund as well as what investment strategies and goals the fund is to have creates mutual funds. When ethical mutual funds are created a set of different tools for selecting and screening are used. These screening methods shape the product as well as other market actors through sanctions. The three basic screening strategies; excluding, supporting and active participation may all be seen as sanctioning instruments since they, respectively, exclude, include and set out to change companies by way of negative or positive sanctioning. Organizing markets This is one of five reports of a series of empirical studies aiming to map out the actors found around different products and explore if and in which ways these actor attempt to shape the product. The studies are part of the Score research program Organizing markets. This working paper is about the actors around ethical mutual funds. An ethical mutual fund is, in several senses, a dual product. Firstly, a mutual fund - weather it is categorized as ethical or not - is both a product and a service. The consumer pays for shares of a collection of securities and the management of these. In this working paper it is shown how the duality of ethical mutual funds is continuously upheld in various ways. The reification of the duality concerns the separation of the economic and the ethical, something which is reflected in the legal framework as well as the mark