IESEG, KU LEUVEN and EVPA launch collaborative study on decision-making behaviour of investors for impact
EVPA is partnering with IESEG and KU Leuven to conduct research into decision-making behaviour of impact investors at different stages.
This February, the IESEG School of Management and KU Leuven will be collaborating with EVPA on a ground-breaking investigation of decision-making dynamics among investors for impact. IESEG aims to run in-depth interviews with practitioners to collect important market insights, which will shed light on the dynamics and trade-offs driving decision-making processes of impact investors.
Why a dedicated study?
IESEG and KUL have been doing research on social entrepreneurship, analysing business models, internationalisation, governance issues, and internal tensions between social and economic intentions in social ventures. In this study, they aim to widen the scope of their research by looking at the investment side and the role of investors in these ventures.
The research intends to provide academic and practical implications to better understand how impact investors add value to social enterprises in their portfolios in two phases:
- Pre-investment phase: how investors choose social enterprises for their portfolio, how they make assessments through due-diligence, and how they structure the deals.
- Post investment phase: how impact investors add value to their portfolio firms, support their investees in various strategic and operational steps, and what major challenges they encounter in the relationships with their portfolio firms.
Why a partnership?
Building on the successful collaboration between EVPA and KU Leuven in the context of the OECD peer learning partnership on internationalisation and women inclusion in social and solidarity economy enterprises, IESEG and KU Leuven strengthened their relationship to reinforce practitioners-driven knowledge production. The work of these two universities will build on EVPA’s latest research on impact measurement and management (IMM), looking further into the elements that drive decision-making and trade-offs that arise while balancing impact and financial returns.
As shown in the latest EVPA report “How to integrate impact throughout the investment journey“, investors for impact incorporate impact throughout all stages of the investment journey. The ultimate goal of their impact management practices is to drive better decision-making and maximise impact.
Investors for impact will have access to a community of peers and will take part in an important piece of research with IESEG School of Management and KU Leuven. They will help shed light on this under-researched topic and ultimately support other practitioners to achieve more impact.
Would you like to take part to this research project? Let us know!
This research is dedicated to all European investors for impact. To learn more about this important project, please contact Nazli Massihi and Gianluca Gaggiotti (see contact details below).
Contact for more information
Nazli Massihi, Research and Teaching Assistant, IESEG School of Management - n.massihi(at)ieseg.fr
Gianluca Gaggiotti, Research Manager, EVPA - ggaggiotti(at)evpa.ngo
Johan Bruneel, Professor, IESEG School of Management - Johan.bruneel(at)ieseg.fr
Filip De Beule, Associate Professor, KU Leuven - filip.debeule(at)kuleuven.be