Impact investing has emerged as a topical subject-matter for scholars working at the intersection between finance and social policy. By and large, it is seen as a product of financialization: some argue that the social is colonized by financial actors and methods, others see it as a site where boundary work produces a state of value plurality in which competing values—social and financial—co-exist. This article takes the latter perspective further and unpacks the endogenous dynamics underpinning the creation of social values in impact investing programs. It analyzes how high-level organizations in the field prescribed specific social impact valuation processes and mechanisms for collecting, measuring, and reporting data about value creation. It argues that the social values circulating in the impact investing field emerge from the interplay between a wide array of stakeholders, impact investors included. The social impact accounting tools that capture them materialize therefore as sites of political battles and negotiations between stakeholders, with both emancipatory but also exploitative potential. This has consequences upon our understanding of how financialization travels and how the social dynamics underpinning accounting devices (re)draw boundaries between competing values and fields.

影响力投资已成为金融与社会政策交叉领域学者的热门话题。总的来说，它被视为金融化的产物：一些人认为社会被金融行为者和方法所殖民，另一些人则将其视为边界工作产生价值多元化状态的场所，其中相互竞争的价值——社会和金融——共存。本文进一步探讨了后一种观点，并揭示了在影响力投资计划中支持创造社会价值的内生动力。它分析了该领域的高层组织如何规定特定的社会影响评估流程和机制，以收集、衡量和报告有关价值创造的数据。它认为，在影响力投资领域流通的社会价值源于包括影响力投资者在内的广泛利益相关者之间的相互作用。捕捉它们的社会影响会计工具因此成为利益相关者之间政治斗争和谈判的场所，具有解放和剥削的潜力。这对我们对金融化如何传播以及支撑会计设备的社会动态如何（重新）在竞争价值和领域之间划定界限的理解产生了影响。