California Management Review

Abstract

Proponents of the Conscious Capitalism (CC) movement claim that CC firms should demonstrate a lower gross margin, a higher profit margin, a lower SG&A (Sales, General & Administration), and a lower marketing expense than non-CC comparable firms. Using a sample of industry-year-size matched control firms as the CC firms’ benchmark, this article shows that empirical evidence largely disagrees with these conjectures. It further shows that in contrast to the implications of the CC movement, CC firms neither demonstrated superior stock performance relative to the S&P 500 in recent years, nor do they respond less to the pressures from the equity market.

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