Matching social and financial logics in ethical investing

: the case of Etica SGR

Abstract

Nowadays some financial operators are challenging the boundaries between the social and business sectors, developing financial instruments that enable investors to pursue social issues along with financial returns. This sector developed in Europe at different speeds and followed different paths. While in some European countries numbers related to the ethical investment sector are starting to be remarkable, in Italy this approach is still in an early development stage. The objectives of this research are to provide a framework of ethical investing and suggest financial operators a possible strategy to overcome organizational problems that result from matching social and financial logics. I will address the first providing clear definition of ethical investment and, following an approach of building blocks, I will explain how it is implemented over Europe. I will be able to show the role that institutional investors represent in this context and the barriers that in Italy still brake the development of the sector. Then, using the modern literature on institutional logics I will study the case of Etica SGR, a company leader of ethical investing in the Italian market. I observed that the strategy that it implemented in order to manage multiple institutional logics is particularly suitable for growing companies, a stage of business cycle still not addressed by the literature.

Date of Award	27 Apr 2015
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Supervisor	Tommaso Ramus (Supervisor)