This paper examines the effect of ethical performance on the value of a company and the attractiveness of its stocks for major owners; institutional investors and insiders. Using the Ethisphere® Institute Ethics Quotient to distinguish between ethical and unethical companies, results show that good ethical performance enhanced company value for a sample of 240 large US companies. Furthermore, strong evidence is found that institutional investors are attracted to ethical companies, but that insiders do not show any investment preferences based on the ethical performance of a company. © 2019, Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.

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