How Can Impact Investors Enable Systems Change? Exploring the Theory and Practice of an Emerging Field
Contemporary challenges, such as climate change and inequality, are complex and systemic. There has been an increasing awareness of “systems change” in the impact investing community, recognizing the limitation of the traditional approach (investing in a single company or technology) to create meani...
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| Format: | Thesis |
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Massachusetts Institute of Technology
2024
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| Online Access: | https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/154008 https://orcid.org/0009-0005-4090-4463 |
| _version_ | 1826204879013543936 |
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| author | Yau, Alban (Ray-Pern) |
| author2 | Jay, Jason |
| author_facet | Jay, Jason Yau, Alban (Ray-Pern) |
| author_sort | Yau, Alban (Ray-Pern) |
| collection | MIT |
| description | Contemporary challenges, such as climate change and inequality, are complex and systemic. There has been an increasing awareness of “systems change” in the impact investing community, recognizing the limitation of the traditional approach (investing in a single company or technology) to create meaningful impact in entrenched socio-technical systems. However, a big gap between awareness and action still exists, as the concept of “systems change” or “systems thinking” remains too abstract for most impact investors to adopt in their day-to-day operations. The objective of this study is to address this gap by investigating pioneering case studies in an emerging field of investing with explicit consideration of system change. Through comparing multiple cases, developing an in-depth empirical study, and building a simulation model, this thesis sheds some light on the theory and practice of this emerging field. The results highlight how impact investors have great potential to help enable systems change by operationalizing systems theories, building collectives with stakeholders, and developing a strategic portfolio to influence the system dynamics instead of an isolated innovation or intervention. |
| first_indexed | 2024-09-23T13:02:50Z |
| format | Thesis |
| id | mit-1721.1/154008 |
| institution | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| last_indexed | 2024-09-23T13:02:50Z |
| publishDate | 2024 |
| publisher | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | mit-1721.1/1540082024-04-03T03:33:10Z How Can Impact Investors Enable Systems Change? Exploring the Theory and Practice of an Emerging Field Yau, Alban (Ray-Pern) Jay, Jason System Design and Management Program. Contemporary challenges, such as climate change and inequality, are complex and systemic. There has been an increasing awareness of “systems change” in the impact investing community, recognizing the limitation of the traditional approach (investing in a single company or technology) to create meaningful impact in entrenched socio-technical systems. However, a big gap between awareness and action still exists, as the concept of “systems change” or “systems thinking” remains too abstract for most impact investors to adopt in their day-to-day operations. The objective of this study is to address this gap by investigating pioneering case studies in an emerging field of investing with explicit consideration of system change. Through comparing multiple cases, developing an in-depth empirical study, and building a simulation model, this thesis sheds some light on the theory and practice of this emerging field. The results highlight how impact investors have great potential to help enable systems change by operationalizing systems theories, building collectives with stakeholders, and developing a strategic portfolio to influence the system dynamics instead of an isolated innovation or intervention. S.M. 2024-04-02T14:55:45Z 2024-04-02T14:55:45Z 2024-02 2024-03-08T19:43:26.995Z Thesis https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/154008 https://orcid.org/0009-0005-4090-4463 Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) Copyright retained by author(s) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ application/pdf Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| spellingShingle | Yau, Alban (Ray-Pern) How Can Impact Investors Enable Systems Change? Exploring the Theory and Practice of an Emerging Field |
| title | How Can Impact Investors Enable Systems Change? Exploring the Theory and Practice of an Emerging Field |
| title_full | How Can Impact Investors Enable Systems Change? Exploring the Theory and Practice of an Emerging Field |
| title_fullStr | How Can Impact Investors Enable Systems Change? Exploring the Theory and Practice of an Emerging Field |
| title_full_unstemmed | How Can Impact Investors Enable Systems Change? Exploring the Theory and Practice of an Emerging Field |
| title_short | How Can Impact Investors Enable Systems Change? Exploring the Theory and Practice of an Emerging Field |
| title_sort | how can impact investors enable systems change exploring the theory and practice of an emerging field |
| url | https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/154008 https://orcid.org/0009-0005-4090-4463 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT yaualbanraypern howcanimpactinvestorsenablesystemschangeexploringthetheoryandpracticeofanemergingfield |