Social Impact Investing for Marginalized Communities in Hong Kong: Cases and Issues

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The paper discusses about three cases of SII for marginalized communities in Hong Kong.

The strengths of the work center on the possibility to learn from cases of SII in the context of Hong Kong. However, there are a number of issues that need to be addressed and I would appreciate your attention to the following couple of suggestions:  

1) With regard to the section "Introduction", I think that in this section Authors should give some background on the main topic, explains the academic problem and tells the reader what to expect in the rest of the work. At the same time, the introduction do not provides the description about the contribution provided in terms of added value or new knowledge.

To make the introduction more solid, the Authors could provide more and up to date references to substantiate the sentences in this section. At the same time, it could helpfully explain the motivation for the research and the aim of the research. Moreover, to make the motivation clearer and to differentiate the paper some more from a narrative paper, the author may wish to clarify why it is useful to analyze these cases and what is their added value. The Authors should follow the instruction provided by this journal.

3)  The literature review is not up to date. Please consider the possibility to improve it and to consider the most important works in this specific field of research.

4) The methodological approach is quite standard, and is appropriate for the study. However, section "2. Research Methodology" should be more detailed especially with regard to the sample composition and to the choice of the three cases. In particular, having a small sample size is perfectly acceptable based on your method. But please explain why 3? Is there a reason why this was the right number to explore the phenomenon you are studying. Moreover, it could be useful to describe what rationale did you use to select these particular cases? Does exclusion of other cases have the potential to influence your results/analysis? Here are a couple of references:

5) As declared by the Authors "paper summarizes three business cases with focus on social impact investing (SII)". However, they do not provide a comparison between the three cases or something like an analysis. They describe the three cases but it is not clear why this description could be interesting. There is something of interesting in these three cases? I would like to see more elaboration on connections, a more thorough discussion of the meaning and significance of your findings, and a better delineation of the “value-added” your work brings to the field. What does your work tell us that other paper could not? What are the important aspects? I think there is a lot more that could be said in this section.

6) In order to improve your paper, please follow the suggestions provided in the instruction for authors. In particular, the findings and their implications should be discussed in the broadest context possible and future research directions may also be mentioned. At the same time, I would have also liked to see a discussion of the general limitations of the study.

7) I like to suggest you review recent Sustainability articles to ensure your format and style meets the guidelines and expectations for the journal (in particular in the text, reference numbers should be placed in square brackets [ ]).

Finally, the paper recommends a series of mechanisms enabling SII. Authors do not explain if these mechanisms arose from their analysis, from the literature review or if they are only personal suggestions.

 

Author Response

Thank you for your helpful suggestions.  All issued are addressed in the amended version.  

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

The paper assesses three business cases of social impact investing in Hong Kong. 

 

The topic appears interesting, however several improvements are required. 

 

1.    Overall structure: The paper should be restructured as follows. 

a)    Introduction (impact investing definition/main context/research gap/aim/method/sample/contribution to literature/structure of the paper)

b)    Background/Literature review (this section may include sub-sections)

c)    Method/data

d)    Case results

e)    Discussion

f)     Conclusion

The restructuring of the paper may improve the reading.

 

2.     Introduction 

The introduction should explain, among other, why is relevant the Hong Kong cases? What they added to the impact investing literature? 

 

3.     Literature review and main references. 

Conceptualization of impact investing is not adequate to the Sustainability standards. 

Some examples: 

-       “Social impact investing (SII), which may be known as impact investing, or socially responsible investments”. This is not correct. See https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10551-014-2327-0)

-       “Impact investing has developed itself to be an asset class for professional institutions such as pension funds, endowments and banks in the form of investible funds”. There is a debate on this aspect. See again https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10551-014-2327-0. Furthermore, Chiappini (2017) on the theme wrote: “impact investments spread across many asset classes and generate a new market—the impact investing market—characterized by demand-side and supply-side organizations, intermediaries, and infrastructures (i.e., rules, platforms). Any SII combines different levels and types of social and environmental impact, as well as different levels of financial risk and return. The investment strategy includes a targeted social impact. Some ESG criteria can also be considered in the investment strategy” pag. 22-23 https://www.palgrave.com/de/book/9783319552590)

Other relevant references on impact investing, that can help a better conceptualization, include but are not limited to:

- Freireich, J., & Fulton, K. (2009). Investing for social and environmental impact: A design for catalyzing an emerging industry. Monitor Institute, January.

- OECD (2015 and 2019) https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2562082

http://www.oecd.org/dac/social-impact-investment-2019-9789264311299-en.htm

-Nicholls, Paton and Emerson (2015) http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198703761.001.0001/acprof-9780198703761

-Lehner (Ed) 2017 https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/9781317678830

- La Torre and Calderini (2018) https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007%2F978-3-319-78322-2

Regarding impact investment funds classification, the Authors quoted only Root Capital, 2017. Indeed, Chiappini (2017) https://www.palgrave.com/de/book/9783319552590classified the main literature on the topic and provided the impact funds classification according to many different aspects. See for a recognition the Chapter 3. 

Regarding “Issue on measuring social impact”, the Authors should quote relevant works on this topic. For instance: 

-       Nicholls, A. 2007. Why measuring and communicating social value can help social enterprise become more competitive. Cabinet Office, Office of Third Sector, London.

-       Clark, C., W. Rosenzweig, D. Long, and S. Olsen. 2004. Double bottom line project report: Assessing social impact in double bottom line ventures. http://www.riseproject.org/DBL_Methods_Catalog.pdf.

-       OECD (2015) 

-       Social impact Investment Task Force (2014) and Working Group on Impact Measurement (2014)

-       Mass, K., and K. Liket. 2011. Social impact measurement: Classification of methods. In Environmental management accounting and supply chain management, vol. 27, ed. R.L. Burrit, S. Schalteggers, and M. Bennett, 171–202. Massolution. 2015. Crowdfunding Industry Report. 

-       Etc

I also recommend the quotation of relevant works on impact investments and social impact measurement published in Sustainability. 

Finally, many references appear not updated (see for example, GIIN (2017). We currently have data updated at 2019 https://thegiin.org/research/publication/impinv-market-size)

4.    Terminology: 

-       Distinguish impact investing from socially responsible investments/sustainable finance 

-       Pay attention on the use of sustainability as synonym of social performance/social impact as at pag. 11: “what is known is their sustainable”. I think is their social impact/social performance. 

5.    Method

Why did you choose three case studies? Please explain the reason and improve explanation of case selection process. 

6.    Results and discussion

These sections must be improved. The Authors described the cases but they did not compare theme and did not explain what are the main relevant aspects, may be in comparison with other worldwide cases. What makes the cases relevant? Relevant for who? (Practitioners, investors, scholars…?). Please, discuss the cases according to their main features, the main literature and other main cases. 

7.    Conclusion. The section should summarize the main finding, identify both the contribution to literature and lines for future research. 

Given the extensive revision recommended, I suggest Major revision. 

Hope my suggestions may help Authors to improve the paper and hope I will see the paper published soon in Sustainability. 

Best regards.

Author Response

Thank you for your helpful suggestions.  All issues are addressed in the amended version. 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

It is an interesting work about social impact investment, but it seems more a brief consultancy report and it had no scientific component. I think it is no adequate for a journal as Sustainability.

Author Response

Thank you for your comments.  the value of the paper is further explained in the attached document. Wish you would agree to  it.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Thank you for the revised version. I think the paper is improved. Good luck. Best regards.