Elgar Research Agendas outline the future of research in a given area. Leading scholars are given the space to explore their subject in provocative ways, and map out the potential directions of travel. They are relevant but also visionary. This insightful Research Agenda explores social finance and impact investing, surveying the latest research in this area. It considers a range of actors from across the social finance ecosystem, from investors and social banks, to the entrepreneurs who propose sustainable solutions and seek finance. Chapters discuss a variety of key topics, including impact investing practices by philanthropic and renewable energy sectors, the financing of social enterprises, social ventures and the effect of banking on the Sustainable Development Goals. The Research Agenda also examines market-figures to provide a holistic overview of the social finance and impact investing markets. Considering the perspectives of both investors and investees, this Research Agenda will be a useful guide for scholars and researchers in the areas of social finance, social entrepreneurship, impact investing and sustainability. Its evaluation of the challenges and successes of multiple social finance sectors will also be beneficial for practitioners in these fields.

Green Finance is heralded in theory and practice as the new panacea - the ideal way to support the green transition of businesses into more sustainable, environmentally responsible forms, by means of incentivized financial investments. This handbook offers the most authoritative overview of Green Finance to date, presenting the state of the art, and including innovative directions from leading academics and practitioners. It focuses on Green Finance in a comprehensive way, discussing its characteristics, underlying principles and mechanisms. The book carefully illuminates the issues surrounding Green Finance and delineate its boundaries, mapping out and displaying the disparate voices, traditions and professional communities engaged in green and sustainable finance activities. Specifically, it examines the Environmental in the Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) measurements, while also discussing the interplay between E, S and G. It develops a range of analytic approaches to the subject, both appreciative and critical, and synthesizes new theoretical constructs that make better sense of hybrid financial relationships. Furthermore, the handbook illustrates existing best practice and theory and examines the gaps to derive the necessary future research questions. It highlights the essential issues and debates and provides a robust research agenda. As such, it helps to create an effective market for the various green financing instruments through clarification and standardization. This handbook will be the standard reference work for a broad audience, encompassing scholars, researchers and students, but also interested professionals, regulators and policymakers, wishing to orient themselves in a rapidly developing and increasingly topical field.

Artificial intelligence (AI) and Big Data based applications in accounting and auditing have become pervasive in recent years. However, research on the societal implications of the widespread and partly unregulated use of AI and Big Data in several industries remains scarce despite salient and competing utopian and dystopian narratives. This book focuses on the transformation of accounting and auditing based on AI and Big Data. It not only provides a thorough and critical overview of the status-quo and the reports surrounding these technologies, but it also presents a future outlook on the ethical and normative implications concerning opportunities, risks, and limits. The book discusses topics such as future, human-machine collaboration, cybernetic approaches to decision-making, and ethical guidelines for good corporate governance of AI-based algorithms and Big Data in accounting and auditing. It clarifies the issues surrounding the digital transformation in this arena, delineates its boundaries, and highlights the essential issues and debates within and concerning this rapidly developing field. The authors develop a range of analytic approaches to the subject, both appreciative and sceptical, and synthesise new theoretical constructs that make better sense of human-machine collaborations in accounting and auditing. This book offers academics a variety of new research and theory building on digital accounting and auditing from and for accounting and auditing scholars, economists, organisations, and management academics and political and philosophical thinkers. Also, as a landmark work in a new area of current policy interest, it will engage regulators and policy makers, reflective practitioners, and media commentators through its authoritative contributions, editorial framing and discussion, and sector studies and cases.

Routledge Handbook of Social and Sustainable Finance brings together an international cast of leading authorities to map out and display the disparate voices, traditions and professional communities engaged in social finance activity. With a clear societal or environmental mission, foundations, individual and group investors, as well as public bodies around the world have become increasingly eager to finance and support innovative forms of doing business. Together, founders and established businesses alike are embracing new sustainable business models with a distinct stakeholder approach to tackle social or environmental problems in what they see as a failed economic system in crisis. As a result, the topic of social and sustainable finance is at the forefront of financial economic thought. This Handbook is divided up into three parts. The first, "The Landscape of Social and Sustainable Finance and Investments", comprises of chapters from a multitude of perspectives in an effort to grasp the entirety of the landscape. The second, "Challenges, Suggestions, Critiques and Debates", focuses on areas ranging from sociological underpinnings to critical takes on markets, and the identification of specialized business models. Amongst ethical considerations, topics include the scaling of impact, an analysis of sustainability as risk prevention and comparative analyses of various methods of justification and measurement. In the third and final section, "Markets and Institutions", contributions range from various perspectives on sustainable banking to environmental marketplaces, and finally on to practical cases and country specific observations. This volume is essential reading for both academics and students in economics and finance. It is also of interest to those who study environmental economics, microeconomics and banking.

Routledge Handbook of Social and Sustainable Finance brings together an international cast of leading authorities to map out and display the disparate voices, traditions and professional communities engaged in social finance activity. With a clear societal or environmental mission, foundations, individual and group investors, as well as public bodies around the world have become increasingly eager to finance and support innovative forms of doing business. Together, founders and established businesses alike are embracing new sustainable business models with a distinct stakeholder approach to tackle social or environmental problems in what they see as a failed economic system in crisis. As a result, the topic of social and sustainable finance is at the forefront of financial economic thought. This Handbook is divided up into three parts. The first, "The Landscape of Social and Sustainable Finance and Investments", comprises of chapters from a multitude of perspectives in an effort to grasp the entirety of the landscape. The second, "Challenges, Suggestions, Critiques and Debates", focuses on areas ranging from sociological underpinnings to critical takes on markets, and the identification of specialized business models. Amongst ethical considerations, topics include the scaling of impact, an analysis of sustainability as risk prevention and comparative analyses of various methods of justification and measurement. In the third and final section, "Markets and Institutions", contributions range from various perspectives on sustainable banking to environmental marketplaces, and finally on to practical cases and country specific observations. This volume is essential reading for both academics and students in economics and finance. It is also of interest to those who study environmental economics, microeconomics and banking.