IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsusta/v13y2021i18p10319-d636121.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Framing of Sustainable Finance in Charitable Foundations—Findings from a Qualitative Study

Author

Listed:
  • Berenike Wiener

    (Faculty of Business and Economics, Institute of Management and Organization, Leuphana University of Lueneburg, 21335 Luneburg, Germany)

Abstract

In the face of decreasing returns on investments and the growing influence of sustainability requirements, foundations have had to adjust the way they invest their assets. Sustainable investments have shown themselves to be as robust in terms of their returns as conventional investments and—more than that—they can support foundations’ goals much more effectively. But only very few foundations implement sustainable investment strategies. The present study analyses the reasons for this, by means of interviews with personnel responsible for assets. The interviewees operate as ‘sense givers’ who have to kickstart a process of strategic readjustment. The reference framework for their ways of thinking and acting has been investigated using framing analysis. So-called sense givers’ isolated position in their foundations is the rather disturbing finding of this study. Familiar strategies of action seem to be of little help in their endeavours. This is frequently expressed in sometimes poignant calls for external guidelines and role models, while specific ideas about courses of action remain relatively vague. This applies particularly to large foundations where strategic readjustments are hindered by complex structures and hierarchies, whereas in small-scale entities, decisions follow shorter, face-to-face pathways. The imperative of carving out a complex sustainability discourse in their foundations drives sense givers to activities like networking inside and outside their foundations in order to exchange ideas and build alliances, for example within the German Association of Charitable Foundations. Investment managers need first of all to develop new strategies to convince the range of stakeholders in their foundations.

Suggested Citation

  • Berenike Wiener, 2021. "The Framing of Sustainable Finance in Charitable Foundations—Findings from a Qualitative Study," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(18), pages 1-15, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:13:y:2021:i:18:p:10319-:d:636121
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/18/10319/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/18/10319/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Joern H. Block & Alexander Groh & Lars Hornuf & Tom Vanacker & Silvio Vismara, 0. "The entrepreneurial finance markets of the future: a comparison of crowdfunding and initial coin offerings," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 0, pages 1-18.
    2. Douglas Cumming & Michele Meoli & Silvio Vismara, 0. "Does equity crowdfunding democratize entrepreneurial finance?," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 0, pages 1-20.
    3. Dennis A. Gioia & Kumar Chittipeddi, 1991. "Sensemaking and sensegiving in strategic change initiation," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 12(6), pages 433-448, September.
    4. Gunnar Friede & Timo Busch & Alexander Bassen, 2015. "ESG and financial performance: aggregated evidence from more than 2000 empirical studies," Journal of Sustainable Finance & Investment, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 5(4), pages 210-233, October.
    5. Theresa Gehringer, 2020. "Corporate Foundations as Partnership Brokers in Supporting the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(18), pages 1-24, September.
    6. Garry Carnegie & Lee Parker & Eva Tsahuridu, 2021. "It's 2020: What is Accounting Today?," Australian Accounting Review, CPA Australia, vol. 31(1), pages 65-73, March.
    7. Kim Schumacher & Hugues Chenet & Ulrich Volz, 2020. "Sustainable finance in Japan," Journal of Sustainable Finance & Investment, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 10(2), pages 213-246, April.
    8. Robert, Kihlberg & Ola, Lindberg, 2021. "Reflexive sensegiving: An open-ended process of influencing the sensemaking of others during organizational change," European Management Journal, Elsevier, vol. 39(4), pages 476-486.
    9. Joern H. Block & Alexander Groh & Lars Hornuf & Tom Vanacker & Silvio Vismara, 2021. "The entrepreneurial finance markets of the future: a comparison of crowdfunding and initial coin offerings," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 57(2), pages 865-882, August.
    10. Douglas Cumming & Michele Meoli & Silvio Vismara, 2021. "Does equity crowdfunding democratize entrepreneurial finance?," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 56(2), pages 533-552, February.
    11. Karl E. Weick & Kathleen M. Sutcliffe & David Obstfeld, 2005. "Organizing and the Process of Sensemaking," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 16(4), pages 409-421, August.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Felix Reichenbach & Martin Walther, 2021. "Signals in equity-based crowdfunding and risk of failure," Financial Innovation, Springer;Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, vol. 7(1), pages 1-30, December.
    2. Leonardo Becchetti & Emanuele Bobbio & Federico Prizia & Lorenzo Semplici, 2022. "Going Deeper into the S of ESG: A Relational Approach to the Definition of Social Responsibility," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(15), pages 1-22, August.
    3. Filstad, Cathrine & Olsen, Trude Høgvold & Karp, Tom, 2021. "Constructing managerial manoeuvring space in contradictory contexts," European Management Journal, Elsevier, vol. 39(4), pages 467-475.
    4. Sevda Helpap & Sigrid Bekmeier-Feuerhahn & Luisa Pinkernelle, 2018. "Ambivalenzen in organisationalen Veränderungen [Ambivalence in Organizational Change]," Schmalenbach Journal of Business Research, Springer, vol. 70(3), pages 209-241, August.
    5. Radoslaw Luft & Adam Weinert, 2021. "Analysis of the Crowdfunding European Market: Performance and Perspectives," European Research Studies Journal, European Research Studies Journal, vol. 0(4), pages 632-644.
    6. Giuliani, Marco & Skoog, Matti, 2020. "Making sense of the temporal dimension of intellectual capital: A critical case study," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 70(C).
    7. Beattie, Vivien, 2014. "Accounting narratives and the narrative turn in accounting research: Issues, theory, methodology, methods and a research framework," The British Accounting Review, Elsevier, vol. 46(2), pages 111-134.
    8. Ekaterina Jussupow & Kai Spohrer & Armin Heinzl, 2022. "Radiologists’ Usage of Diagnostic AI Systems," Business & Information Systems Engineering: The International Journal of WIRTSCHAFTSINFORMATIK, Springer;Gesellschaft für Informatik e.V. (GI), vol. 64(3), pages 293-309, June.
    9. Luisa Faust & Maura Kolbe & Sasan Mansouri & Paul P. Momtaz, 2022. "The Crowdfunding of Altruism," JRFM, MDPI, vol. 15(3), pages 1-29, March.
    10. Florence Allard-Poesi, 2015. "Dancing in the Dark: Making Sense of Managerial Roles during Strategic Conversations," Working Papers hal-01145772, HAL.
    11. Jeffrey S. Bednar & Benjamin M. Galvin & Blake E. Ashforth & Ella Hafermalz, 2020. "Putting Identification in Motion: A Dynamic View of Organizational Identification," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 31(1), pages 200-222, January.
    12. Lionel Garreau & Serge Perrot, 2012. "Comprendre la dynamique de la socialisation organisationnelle: Une approche par le sensemaking," Post-Print halshs-00949067, HAL.
    13. Florence Allard-Poesi, 2015. "Dancing in the dark: Making sense of managerial roles during strategic conversations," Post-Print hal-01490734, HAL.
    14. Massimiliano Barbi & Valentina Febo & Giancarlo Giudici, 2023. "Community-level social capital and investment decisions in equity crowdfunding," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 61(3), pages 1075-1110, October.
    15. Mathieu Detchessahar & Benoît Journé, 2018. "Managing Strategic Discussions in Organizations: A Habermasian Perspective," Post-Print hal-02070709, HAL.
    16. Costa, Sandra & Coyle-Shapiro, Jacqueline, 2021. "What happens to others matters! An intraindividual processual approach to coworkers’ psychological contract violations," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 109872, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    17. Mike Metcalfe & Saras Sastrowardoyo, 2016. "Sense-making Innovative Systems: Prestigious MOOCs," Systems Research and Behavioral Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 33(3), pages 437-451, May.
    18. Lionel Garreau & Serge Perrot, 2012. "Comprendre la dynamique de la socialisation organisationnelle : une approche par le sensemaking," Post-Print halshs-01054809, HAL.
    19. Saul Estrin & Susanna Khavul & Mike Wright, 2022. "Soft and hard information in equity crowdfunding: network effects in the digitalization of entrepreneurial finance," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 58(4), pages 1761-1781, April.
    20. Robert J. Blomme, 2012. "How Managers Can Conduct Planned Change in Self-organising Systems: Actor Network Theory as a Perspective to Manager¡¯s Actions," International Journal of Business Administration, International Journal of Business Administration, Sciedu Press, vol. 3(5), pages 9-22, September.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:13:y:2021:i:18:p:10319-:d:636121. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.