Why do financial companies adopt the United Nations Principles for responsible investment?

This study investigates the effect of three categories of factors on the decision by financial companies to adopt the Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI). These factors are linked to (i) resources available to the firm (ii) the search for legitimacy and (iii) governance. Univariate and multivariate analyses are applied on a sample of 198 financial firms between 2006 and 2015. The results show that financial companies that are more likely to become PRI signatories have fewer available slack resources, are more scrutinized by the public, are bigger and have a board of directors characterized by greater gender diversity and independence than nonsignatory companies.