Corporate Sustainability Ratings Databases: Maximizing perceived content usefulness Research-in-Progress

This paper reports on a laboratory experiment conducted to investigate interactions between the design of two different corporate sustainability ratings databases, and users’ perceptions of the usefulness of their content. Four heuristics were investigated: the for-profit status of the company that produced the database, the company’s strategic ties, the perceived ease-of-use of the database itself, and its perceived credibility. A dual-process theoretical lens was applied. Findings support the importance of three of the four heuristic cues for influencing perceptions of content usefulness. Both credibility and For-profit status functioned as both heuristic cues and as argument factors, suggesting that their influence is systematic and enduring. Ease-of-use was the most influential overall, particularly in interaction with user expertise. Implications for the design of sustainability ratings databases are discussed, along with ongoing research efforts.