Maintain or Disrupt: Narratives of Sustainability in Finance

Abstract

Management scholars are increasingly mobilizing research to better address grand challenges that face society. One such challenge is that of integrating sustainability in finance, which involves combining financial objectives with non-financial concerns in investment decision-making. In mixing in non-financial concerns, sustainability is at odds with a traditional finance approach in which profit maximization plays a guiding role. Recent research has shown what actors are doing to embed sustainability in finance; however, they have done so from disparate theoretical traditions. A central tension that has emerged is that of embedding sustainability practices in existing structures or engaging in a friction between sustainability and traditional approaches to finance. We build on the tradition of Institutional Work and the concepts of maintenance and disruption to conceptualize this tension. In this symposium we propose four empirical papers from different view-points (hedge funds, conservation finance, academia, and asset management firms) and extend theory with a discussion on the interplay between maintenance and disruption in grand challenges. Why Activist Hedge Funds Target Socially Responsible Firms: The Signaling Costs of CSR Presenter: Mark R. DesJardine; Penn State Smeal College of Business Presenter: Emilio Marti; Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus U. Using Conservation Finance and its Metrics to Reconcile Indigenous and Non-Indigenous Peoples Presenter: Diane-Laure Arjalies; Ivey Business School Presenter: Bobby Banerjee; Cass Business School, City U. London “Performativity Crisis” in Academia: The Emergence of a Sustainable Finance Epistemic Community. Presenter: Rachelle BELINGA; MINES ParisTech – PSL Research U. The Role of Emotion in the Translation of Sustainability in Finance. Presenter: Tamar Gross; New York U. Presenter: Tracy Van Holt; NYU Stern