Intentionality in Sustainable Entrepreneurship and Finance: A Portfolio Measure for Social Impact

There is a growing interest in nearing finance to social impact: in the last 10 years, new classes of actors – impact investors – and strategies promoting investments in social businesses helped defining an institutional context in which investments seek blended value, a paradigm different from the mainstream context in which investments seek financial returns. However, the proliferation of mainstream actors investing in social impact suggests a deeper investigation. The purpose of the paper is to capture the heterogeneity of players by analyzing the influence of different institutional logics on their investment decisions. By introducing the concept of intentionality toward social impact, we develop an Impact Score for each investor, which assesses the extent to which investment portfolios of social- and financial-oriented investors reflect their orientations toward intentional generation of impact. Results evidenced that there is statistically significant difference between the Impact Score of social- and financial-oriented investors, and that the Paris Agreement contributes to justify such difference. Before the event, social- and financial-oriented investors presented similar levels of Impact Score, while after it financial-oriented investors present lower Impact Score than impact investors, suggesting that the event provides an institutional field change that increases the distance between investors with different institutional logics."