Introduction to A Research Agenda for Social Finance

Traditional means of finance may be inadequate for starting and sustaining social ventures with hybrid business models due to their inherent abnormal risk-premiums and seeked social additionalities. Impact investing is one aspect of the newly emerged social finance sector that addresses this inadequacy and has gained importance since the term was first coined by the Rockefeller Foundation in 2007. It is assumed that institutional impact investors can act as agents towards further investments also by legitimizing the industry. It has so far become clear that in order to understand the field of social finance or impact investing, researchers need to look at it from various angles and employ inter-disciplinary approaches. This research agenda shall provide guidance to aspiring researchers thus both in terms of improving the understanding of the layout of our field as well as in finding research questions and suitable methodologies as a start for their own endeavors.