While many rating systems seek to help buyers overcome information asymmetries when making purchasing decisions, we investigate how these ratings also influence the companies being rated. We hypothesize that ratings are particularly likely to spur responses from firms that receive poor ratings,...

Over the last decades, management scholars have tried to examine whether profitability can be achieved with actions that also improve social and environmental performance. More recently, this debate has gained new traction with the emergence of the so-called "impact investors," who not only...