Social impact finance is a promising concept for addressing pressing social issues by applying a holistic approach to value creation that combines financial return and social impact. Social impact investments could represent an enormous market opportunity. Currently, there is an estimated $1 trillion to $14 trillion market for impact investing when global infrastructure investments are included. Recent studies have noted that there is not a clear understanding of the meaning of social impact investing among academics and practitioners. Addressing this void in impact investing research, this chapter aims to explore the stance of existing studies on impact investing in order to clarify the concept and to identify focal points and trends, as well as inconsistencies and research gaps. This chapter contains a bibliometric analysis of the literature on the topic published in peer-reviewed scientific journals and recorded by the Social Science Citation Index (SSCI) and a content analysis using a map of keywords that permits classification of articles according to the covered issues. More specifically, this work aims to do the following: (i) graphically map the intellectual structure and the evolution of impact investing research and related fields, subfields and relationships; (ii) debate current findings and identify the links between causes, effects, stakeholders and key qualitative-quantitative variables involved in the impact investing cycle; and (iii) design a set of themes meriting further investigation from researchers in future studies and provide some conclusions and implications about further developments in the research agenda.
Social Impact Investing: A Model and Research Agenda
Caré R;Trotta A
2016-01-01
Abstract
Social impact finance is a promising concept for addressing pressing social issues by applying a holistic approach to value creation that combines financial return and social impact. Social impact investments could represent an enormous market opportunity. Currently, there is an estimated $1 trillion to $14 trillion market for impact investing when global infrastructure investments are included. Recent studies have noted that there is not a clear understanding of the meaning of social impact investing among academics and practitioners. Addressing this void in impact investing research, this chapter aims to explore the stance of existing studies on impact investing in order to clarify the concept and to identify focal points and trends, as well as inconsistencies and research gaps. This chapter contains a bibliometric analysis of the literature on the topic published in peer-reviewed scientific journals and recorded by the Social Science Citation Index (SSCI) and a content analysis using a map of keywords that permits classification of articles according to the covered issues. More specifically, this work aims to do the following: (i) graphically map the intellectual structure and the evolution of impact investing research and related fields, subfields and relationships; (ii) debate current findings and identify the links between causes, effects, stakeholders and key qualitative-quantitative variables involved in the impact investing cycle; and (iii) design a set of themes meriting further investigation from researchers in future studies and provide some conclusions and implications about further developments in the research agenda.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.