Despite the general hype, Social Impact Bonds’ (SIB) rate of adoption is still modest. The mismatch between widespread interest and actual adoption raises interesting questions as to whether we are still in the early adoption phase of SIBs and massive diffusion is yet to come, or we are observing a marginal phenomenon. In order to shed some light on this issue, the paper provides a review of the cases in which the SIB model has been already applied, exploring the specific configuration employed, with the purpose to identify regular configuration patterns and their deviation from a prototypical structure

This paper performs a critical analysis of the financial instruments that can be employed to fund social innovation,\ud with a specific focus on social tech start-ups that develop and deploy technology-driven solutions to\ud address social needs in a financially sustainable manner. The paper analyses how these start-ups can access\ud financing, the barriers to financing that these organisations experience and the financial instruments that are\ud most suitable to address their financial needs. Social tech start-ups have many points of overlap with high-tech\ud start-ups in terms of the barriers they encounter to financing in different lifecycle stages. Still, the institutional\ud solutions that are commonly exploited by high-tech start-ups for growth are not enough to support social tech\ud start-ups to scale. Therefore, we introduce the concept of SII and discuss its potential contribution to the social\ud tech finance landscape. Then, using the case of social tech start-ups as paradigmatic of the broader problem of\ud financing mechanisms for social innovation, we formulate a research agenda, including directions for research\ud and theoretical development in the field of SII

Purpose: the aim of this paper is to develop an interpretative framework of the evolution of Social Impact Investment (SII) in different countries. SII is a strategy of asset allocation, which combines financial profitability with a measurable social and environmental impact. Methodology: through a thematic analysis of 75 documents, i.e. reports, experts' considerations, reflections on practitioners' experience, meetings' minutes, written by the SII Taskforce of the Group of Eight and the relative National Advisory Boards, we identify the main themes connected to the topic of SII development and recognize four main elements useful to segment the market, namely information asymmetry, financial instruments, source of capital and market intermediation. Findings: they map the ongoing practices in the Group of Eight's members and distinguish two speeds in the evolution of SII: on one hand, there is a group of road runners, which pave the way to SII and in which SII activities have being institutionalized; on the other hand, there is a wider group of chasers, where the SII infrastructures lack any systematization. Originality: even if some authors have provided preliminary interpretations of the SII evolution, they mainly focus on national level, and do not provide any crosscountries analysis. The findings of the present work contribute to overcome the lack of evidence characterizing the SII field and the absence of comparable and consistent data at global level by filling the academic literature about SII, through a structured interpretative framework.

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.

Innovation systems are increasingly oriented towards the solution of societal and environmental problems. Social entrepreneurship can be regarded as a market-based actor, inherently aimed at finding solutions for these problems. The development of technologically advanced social entrepreneurship represents an outcome of problem-oriented innovation systems, requiring a closer link between social and technological innovation. Nonetheless, the literature has not yet explored a key element of these innovation systems: the technology transfer processes, which may enable social entrepreneurial organizations to act as innovation actors leveraging on technology. This paper investigates the relationship between the technology transfer processes targeting social entrepreneurship and different models of problem-oriented innovation ecosystems. The paper relies on a multiple-case-study design, including two problem-oriented innovation ecosystems in the Italian context, namely, MIND and Torino Social Impact, which are technology transfer projects designed to target social entrepreneurship. Drawing from content analysis of interviews, documents and direct observations, the results stress that the different objectives and contents of technology transfer, coupled with different perceptions of the idiosyncratic features of social entrepreneurship compared to commercial entrepreneurship, fit different ecosystem models in terms of the participating actors, governance and primary orientation to social or economic value generation.