Organizational challenges of impact investing: an ethnographic study and a theoretical exploration

• Autores: Tom Paul Vandebroek
• Directores de la Tesis: Fabrizio Ferraro (dir. tes.), John Almandoz Ríos (codir. tes.)
• Lectura: En la Universidad de Navarra ( España ) en 2015
• Idioma: español
• Tribunal Calificador de la Tesis: Africa Ariño (presid.), Govert Vroom (secret.), Inés Alegre Tort-Martorell (voc.), Daniel Beunza Ibáñez (voc.), Tommaso Ramus (voc.)
• Programa de doctorado: Programa de Doctorado en Ciencias de la Dirección por la Universidad de Navarra
• Materias:
  • Ciencias económicas
    • Organización y dirección de empresas
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• Resumen

  • In this dissertation research, I have sought to see an emerging practice in social finance, viz. impact investing, through the eyes of pioneering practitioners, by means of a participant observation, and to theorize the observations. As impact investing creates financing structures combining business and charity at their core, important insights, from a hybrid organizations perspective, can be gained from it. Building on prior studies in this tradition, I come to find that my studied firm, “Combo Invest,” employs a particular and novel approach to hiring professionals, which prior research seemed to consider rather unattainable. Combo seeks to hire experienced professionals who, however, are not truly steeped in any constituent professional logic – as they demonstrate “frustration” with that being a single logic. This unique hiring approach is implemented in combination with particular socialization processes, pervaded by the use of humor, in part to mitigate drawbacks of Combo’s distinct hiring approach. Furthermore, I zoom in on how investment decision-making from a dual-objective perspective is put in practice. I come to find that intertemporal decision-making blends – rather than juxtaposes – the short and long term. I highlight the role played herein by a combined use of qualitative and quantitative tools and of a counterintuitive use of commensuration, i.e. translating qualities into numbers, aimed at contextualizing rather than decontextualizing. In addition to the empirical study, I take a step back and consider, from an exploratory theoretical viewpoint, what challenges impact investing as a practice may run into, due to its very nature and drawing upon insights from several streams of literature.