The ethical obligations of institutional investors: Managing moral complexity

Institutional investors control almost 60% of all assets under management worldwide and encompass a wide variety of organizations. Despite this reach, however, institutional investors have not received the normative scrutiny they merit beyond general discussions around their legally grounded fiduciary obligations to their beneficiaries. This paper offers a discussion of institutional investor ethical obligations in light of their specific attributes. We propose that the different characteristics of institutional investors and the diverse roles they play in the marketplace inform the scope of their activities, and, in turn, the different ways in which their basic ethical obligations can be fulfilled.