Impact Investing in Information Technology Business

Abstract

Impact investing is one of most prominent investing strategies that pursue to generate measurable environmental and social effects in addition to profits. Despite the growth of the impact investing market and plausible results of information technology (IT) solutions and services, impact investments in the IT markets have been scarce and there has been very little research of the phenomenon. This study presents a multivocal literature review (MLR) to narrow the gap between the practitioners and scholars and provides results for further research avenues. The study reviews 374 literature sources in total using pre-selected keywords which were analysed using thematic and content analysis. Results indicate that IT related impact investing is increasing frequently in practice, but there is paucity of research of the phenomenon. The results of the study also propose three main discourses in IT related impact investing. Current practices and research converge technology, business management and impact investing infrastructure discourses. In addition, the study displays the most prominent technology sectors in the field. The study proposes that impact investing is a prominent phenomenon among the practitioners, and especially IT start-ups are establishing significant solutions for social and environmental impact, whereas scholars are neglecting the phenomenon.