Social impact investing (SII) is a strategy of asset allocation that aims to generate social and environmental impact alongside a financial return. Compared to other approaches of sustainable finance it holds an enormous potential of generating solutions to societal challenges. However, scholars have claimed that social impact often just employs logic upheld by the mainstream investment approach. Therefore, the paper investigates the assumption that SII has not developed a distinctive implementation strategy able to translate the prioritization of social impact into practice and how to overcome this issue. The thematic analysis of data collected through 105 interviews with Italian SII financiers and the top managers of social ventures allowed us to identify three features of an SII tailored practice: promoting a cultural shift of intermediaries, adopting a coopetition approach, and integrating the social impact in the terms of the financial transaction. Lastly, the paper drafts a research agenda to enhance the proper theorization of SII focusing on the definition of social risk, social return, and governance mechanisms. The key contribution of this article is confirming the lack of an SII-specific practice able to endogenize the intent of prioritizing social impact and providing suggestions to prevent the risk of impact washing.

中文翻译：

---

维护社会影响投资的完整性：制定有特色的实施策略

社会影响力投资（SII）是一种资产分配策略，旨在产生社会和环境影响以及财务回报。与其他可持续金融方法相比，它具有产生解决社会挑战的巨大潜力。但是，学者们声称，社会影响通常只是采用主流投资方法所坚持的逻辑。因此，本文调查的假设是，SII尚未制定出能够将社会影响的优先次序转化为实践以及如何克服此问题的独特实施策略。通过对105名意大利SII金融家和社会企业高层管理人员的访谈收集的数据进行主题分析，使我们能够确定SII量身定制业务的三个特征：促进中介人的文化转变，采取合作竞争的方式，并在金融交易方面整合社会影响力。最后，本文起草了一项研究议程，以加强SII的正确理论化，重点是社会风险，社会收益和治理机制的定义。本文的主要贡献在于确认缺乏SII特定的实践，该实践能够内生于优先考虑社会影响的意图，并提供了防止冲击洗的风险的建议。