Existing research suggests people with stronger moral character traits are more inclined to ethical investing. We take a moral foundations framing approach that synthesizes framing theory and moral foundations theory to investigate whether a moral state of mind created by moral foundations frames can also increase retail investors’ ethical investment intention. We also hypothesize how this moral foundations framing effect is moderated by the perceived return performance of the ethical fund. We test our hypotheses through two online experiments with retail investors in the United States. Study 1 demonstrates that the moral foundations framing effect varies by moral foundation. Focusing on the Fairness foundation, Study 2 shows that the framing effect is stronger under the win-win dual objective condition, relative to a conflict of interest condition. This stronger effect indicates that the moral foundations framing effect appears to be more effective when the investor perceives that ethical investments are financially lucrative. Our study provides preliminary evidence for the potential of the moral foundations framing approach and contributes to scholarship in both business ethics and ethical investing.

现有研究表明，具有较强道德品质的人更倾向于进行道德投资。我们采用综合框架理论和道德基础理论的道德基础框架方法来研究道德基础框架所创造的道德心态是否也可以增加散户投资者的道德投资意愿。我们还假设这种道德基础框架效应如何被道德基金的感知回报表现所缓和。我们通过与美国散户投资者进行的两次在线实验来检验我们的假设。研究 1 表明，道德基础的框架效应因道德基础而异。研究二着眼于公平基础，表明双赢双客观条件下的框架效应更强，相对于利益冲突条件。这种更强的影响表明，当投资者认为道德投资在财务上有利可图时，道德基础框架效应似乎更有效。我们的研究为道德基础框架方法的潜力提供了初步证据，并有助于商业道德和道德投资方面的学术研究。