This project investigates the relationship between social interactions among marketparticipants and the emergence of cyclical trends in stock markets. Two models aredeveloped to capture the interaction dynamics among individuals within the market:a basic model and a model with a price mechanism. By conducting numerical examplesand systematic simulations, we examine the behavior of these models. Ourfindings reveal that the basic model does not generate cyclical trends in the stockmarket. However, the model incorporating the price mechanism demonstrates theability to create such trends.

This doctoral thesis contains three research papers in social finance, a field concerned with the financing issues of organizations aiming to solve social problems. Intertemporal Preferences of Nonprofit Organizations This paper studies the intertemporal preferences that govern the spending decision of nonprofit organizations. I estimate the subjective discount rate and the elasticity of intertemporal substitution based on an extension of the consumption Euler model that allows for heterogeneous parameter estimates with regards to donation dependency and size. Biting the Hand That Feeds You: Effects of Embezzlement in Nonprofits This paper studies how newspaper reports on embezzlement affect donations received by nonprofit organizations. Based on a unique data set on wrongdoings by top managers in nonprofits between 1995 and 2002, I provide evidence that the cost of weak governance in nonprofits is very high. What is the Business of Business? This paper develops a theoretical framework for understanding the emergence of new organizational forms, such as socially responsible firms and social enterprises, which embody the private sector’s efforts to resolve problems that typically have been within the purview of government and traditional charities. The framework yields an optimal investment policy, which typically Pareto-dominates many common social investment principles, such as break-even conditions, social screening and SROI. About the author Andreas Nilsson pursued his PhD in the Department of Finance at the Stockholm School of Economics. During this time, he was affiliated with the Swedish House of Finance and SIFR and spent two years as a visiting fellow at Harvard University. He is the founder of Sonanz, an asset management firm focused on social investments. / <p>Diss. Stockholm : Handelshögskolan, 2014. Sammanfattning jämte 3 uppsatser</p>

Embedding social and financial goals into investment decisions and organizational missions is an increasing hallmark of social finance, a rapidly growing phenomenon that aims to create sustainable solutions to some of society’s largest challenges such as poverty alleviation (Mosley & Hulme, 1998; Burgess & Pande, 2005; Beck et al. 2007a), wealth inequality (Buera et al. 2014; Lagoarde-Segot, 2017) and environmental preservation (Nicholls & Pharoah, 2008) among others (Benedikter, 2011). In recent years, the concept of social finance has emerged through applications such as venture philanthropy (Moody, 2008; Scarlata & Alemany, 2010), socially responsible investing (Renneboog et al. 2008; Nofsinger & Varma, 2014; Gutiérrez-Nieto et al. 2016), impact investing (Bugg-Levine & Emerson, 2011; Höchstädter & Scheck, 2015), corporate social responsibility (Falck & Heblich, 2007; Jha & Cox, 2015), crowdfunding sites that appeal to the charitable intentions of retail investors (Lehner, 2013; Lehner & Nicholls, 2014) and microfinance (Morduch, 1999; Beck et al. 2007b; Armendáriz & Labie, 2011). The microfinance industry is particularly suited to explore the nuances of social finance due to the wide range of actors present in the sector, including not only public, private and nonprofit actors (D’Espallier et al. 2016) but also a wide range of investor profiles including commercial rate, concessionary and fully donative funders (Dorfleitner et al, 2017). To meet these innovations in social finance, a substantial body of scholarly research has materialized in various areas: corporate finance (Bogan, 2012; Tchuigoua, 2014), investing (Dorfleitner et al. 2012; Brière & Szafarz, 2015), nonprofit finance (Jegers, 2011; Roberts, 2013), banking (Gutiérrez-Nieto et al. 2009; Cornée et al. 2016), entrepreneurship (Nicholls, 2010; Bruton et al. 2015), development economics (Cull et al. 2009; Ahlin et al. 2011; Hermes et al. 2011; Hartarska et al. 2013), business ethics (Sandberg et al. 2009; Arjaliès, 2010; Hudon & Sandberg, 2013), organizational theory (Battilana & Dorado, 2012; Pache & Santos, 2013), legal studies (Henderson & Malani, 2009), public economics (Duncan, 2004; Andreoni & Payne, 2011) and management studies (Cobb et al. 2016). However, these theories are often siloed within a particular domain and used separately. Despite a long research tradition on microfinance, there is still an ongoing debate on how to assess profits in a heterogeneous environment with multiple organizational objectives, the comparative advantages of public and private funders and their associated financial instruments to scale the microfinance sector and the nature of trade-offs between the financial and social objectives of microfinance institutions (MFIs). This dissertation aims to fill these gaps by analyzing social finance from an interdisciplinary perspective. The aim is to further nuance our understanding of the compatibility between financial and social objectives and how the trade-off between these two elements is moderated through financial mechanisms from donors and social investors. By analyzing the dimensions where trade-offs are most acute for social enterprises, this dissertation aims to put forth a conceptual framework to help assess profitability. Our analysis focuses on the microfinance industry, which offers a rich research setting due the wide range of institutional profiles active in the sector, including nonprofit, cooperative, for-profit and government agents and its global contributions to financial inclusion, poverty reduction and female empowerment. This dissertation is structured into three chapters, each of which addresses a different research question using different methods and units of analysis. The first chapter is a meta-analysis that uses statistical analysis of empirical research results to aggregate the existing findings on social and financial performance trade-offs as they pertain to microfinance institutions. The second chapter develops a typology of subsidy and donation instruments and then proposes a conceptual model to identify the crowding-in and crowding-out effects of public and private donors on private, commercial investors. The second chapter is complemented with an empirical analysis of a Mexican MFI, Banco Compartamos, using secondary data to suggest how the evolution of funding instruments attracted private commercial capital. Chapter three constructs a conceptual framework to identify fair profits for social enterprise, focusing on the case of microfinance. We then empirically apply the conceptual framework to an international dataset of microfinance institutions. Starting from the observation that no consensus has emerged regarding performance trade-offs between the financial and social objectives of microfinance institutions, Chapter 1 – A Meta-analysis Examining the Nature of Trade-offs in Microfinance – aggregates existing research findings to determine the dimensions of MFI performance, and study characteristics, that drive the confirmation of trade-offs. Specifically, after an initial screen of 3,299 articles, 623 empirical trade-off findings from 61 studies were coded into a dataset, where each empirical finding consists of a pairwise observation between a single financial performance variable and a single social performance variable. Using a probit model to analyze the direction and statistical significance across categories of social/financial performance and study artifacts, findings suggest that depth of outreach, cost of outreach, and efficiency indicators increase the prevalence of trade-offs, while risk indicators are associated with fewer trade-offs. Profitability indicators and outreach to women are found to have no significant effect on performance trade-offs. Study characteristics suggest that using an economic frontier methodology or publishing in development journals increases the incidence of trade-offs. These results help to understand the moderating factors that drive performance trade-offs and suggest that MFI managers and stakeholders may need to make difficult decisions regarding the social goals that may need to be sacrificed to achieve financial sustainability.Chapter 2 – Crowding-in without Crowding-out: Subsidy Design to Foster Commercialization – investigates the financial mechanisms that public and private donors have at their disposal and how they can use these instruments to attract fully commercial private capital to social enterprises. In this article, we first construct a typology to explain the ways in which private donors are complementing public donors in subsidy design. We argue that specific instruments such as corporate intangibles and credit guarantees can trigger permanent crowding-in effects that attract commercial partners, while preventing perverse effects such as crowding-out and soft budget constraints. Applying the typology and investment logics to the case of Compartamos, we observe that crowding-in and crowding-out effects can be present simultaneously, which allows us to suggest that subsidies and donations do not force path dependency towards commercialization but rather co-exist, for example attracting commercial debt investment while crowding-out commercial equity. Our research could help both private and public donors identify strategies to maximize social impact while reducing perverse mutual externalities. Finally, in the presence of performance trade-offs and donor pressures to commercialize operations and scale-up, Chapter 3 – What is an acceptable level of profit for a social enterprise? Insights from Microfinance – develops a conceptual framework for fair profits in social enterprise and then applies the framework to the microfinance industry. The fair profit framework is constructed on four dimensions: the level of profitability, the extent to which the organization adheres to its social mission, the pricing and the surplus distribution of the organization. Using a global sample of MFIs, our results suggest that satisfying all four dimensions is a difficult, although not impossible task as less than 3% of the sample fulfill all four criteria. Using our framework, we suggest that excessive profits in microfinance can be better understood relative to pricing, the social outreach of an organization, and the commitment to clients over time through reduced interest rates. This dissertation provides solid scientific evidence on the compatibility between financial and social returns in social finance. Our dissertation examines social finance through the lens of microfinance, and investigates the performance trade-offs facing MFIs as well as the moderating role of financing mechanisms to help MFIs fulfill their double-bottom-line mandate. We hope we demonstrate that the unique combination of financing technicalities significantly shape the evolution of recipient organizations. Some practical implications are also identified to help practitioners, regulators and managers navigate the ongoing debate on the compatibility of financial and social returns and the design of financial instruments for social enterprise. We firmly believe that these academic works contribute and bring new perspectives to social finance in development economics, and business ethics. / Doctorat en Sciences économiques et de gestion / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

Créé dans les villes marchandes d'Italie du Nord au XVe siècle pour lutter contre l'usure, le Mont-de-Piété est devenu incontestablement un acteur fondamental de l'aide sociale à travers le prêt sur gages. Promoteur d'une économie sociale de bienfaisance, il met au cœur des préoccupations le rôle de l'argent comme une forme d'outil d'intégration économique et sociale à la société en voie de modernisation. Il agit comme une institution protectrice d'un salariat soumis au paupérisme et aux aléas sociaux de leur existence. En apportant des capacités financières, il permet au salariat de compléter ses revenus, quand les salaires sont précaires aléatoires. L'émergence de la Protection sociale, venant garantir et stabiliser les revenus, concurrencerait la finance sociale issue du Mont-de-Piété. Ainsi, l'action sociale institutionnalisée retourne les conceptions de l'aide, l'aide privée, individualisée, et marchande du XIXe siècle est remplacée par une aide publique, collective et non marchande. L'activité du prêt sur gages devient progressivement insignifiante, le Crédit municipal s'intègrera dans une logique bancaire. Mais la fin du XXe siècle voit renaître l'institution, le microcrédit social prend une nouvelle place. Sous l'effet de l'évolution de l'intensité de la Protection sociale, de l'apparition d'une nouvelle pauvreté, et de l'expression d'un nouveau risque lié à l'exclusion bancaire et financière, le prêt sur gages en consacrant un « argent secours » (re)introduit une forme de protection sociétale spécifique. / The first pawnshop, or "Mont-de-Piété," was created in 15th-century Italy to fight usury. The Mont-de-Piété and its pawn loan unquestionably became a fundamental pillar of social care. It promotes a charitable social economy and regards money as being at the center of all concerns for social and economical integration within a modernising society. It plays the role of a protective institution for wage earners subjected to pauperism and the social hazards of existence. The Mont-de-Piété allows wage earners to supplement their incomes by providing financial capacities when wages are low or uncertain. However the emergence of Social Welfare which stabilised incomes soon competed with the social financing provided by the Mont-de-piété. Thus institutionalised social policies brought a new light on the concept of social aid. 19th-century private and individualised social aid was gradulally replaced by public and global social welfare. Pawnbroking activities decreased significantly and soon the Crédit Municipal will assimilate the logic of banking institutions. However, toward the end of the 20th century the Mont-de-Piété institution comes up again and social microcredit progressively rises up in importance. Since the end of the 20th century, consequences of the liberal economic organization - such as social exclusion and banking exclusion - the Crédit Municipal activity has (re)developped and evolved. Nowadays, the Crédit Municipal is, just like the Mont-de-Piété used to be, an institution which allows for or facilitates social inclusion. In fact, the Crédit Municipal and its pawnbroking activities are re-establishing a new form of specific social protection.

This study is within the field of impact investments. Impact investors relates to a twofold requirement of both financial return and positive impact from investments. The purpose of this study is to investigate how impact investors assess impact in their investment evaluation processes and how impact is aligned with the requirement on financial return. Literature have addressed the problem of assessing and quantifying impact, but it fails to tell us how impact is incorporated in the pre-investment evaluation of different investment opportunities. The field of impact investments is increasing in popularity among investors and through a qualitative study based on eight semi-structured interviews with impact investors in Sweden, we try to gain insight in how they address the twofold incentive of both financial return and impact.Our findings show that impact investors apply similar evaluation processes as mainstream venture capitalists with the additional assessment of social impact. We find that investors approach the impact assessment in different ways and that there are split views on the ability of measuring impact in the pre-investment phase. The task of combining the financial measurements with impact is found to be challenging due to the contradicting characteristics of the two, as well as the difficulty of measuring social impact. Often the impact aspect is integrated as a pre-investment evaluation “gate”, where a subjective assessment is central. We contribute to literature by addressing the identified research gap and we aim to contribute to social entrepreneurs’ understanding of how investors relate to impact in their investment decision making processes.

<p>I och med framväxten av samhällsentreprenörer har ett nytt begrepp introducerats påden svenska marknaden. Det handlar om den nya generationen företagare som sermöjligheten i att tjäna pengar samtidigt som de driver verksamheter som skapar ettmervärde för samhället. Samhällsentreprenörerna i Sverige står dock framför ett problem,att på ett hållbart sätt finansiera sin verksamhet.Denna studie syftar till att kartlägga hur finansieringen av svenska samhällsentreprenörerser ut. Undersökningen bygger på en kvalitativ studie där vi har undersökt tresvenska verksamheter, som faller under definitionen ”samhällsentreprenör”. Ämnet ärfortfarande relativt nytt och okänt och det har därför inte bedrivits mycket forskningkring detta. Vi har därför, som underlag för vår undersökning, använt oss av en studiesom gjordes 2003 i Storbritannien.Då vi endast undersökt tre verksamheter har vi inte kunnat dra några generella slutsatserför hela den svenska marknaden. Dock indikerar resultatet av vår undersökning attden svenska marknaden, för att finansiera denna typ av verksamhet, är bristfällig och ibehov av utveckling. För såväl förutsättningarna som efterfrågan på samhällsentreprenörerfinns redan idag och denna grupp företagare ser ut att öka inom den närmasteframtiden.</p>

I och med framväxten av samhällsentreprenörer har ett nytt begrepp introducerats påden svenska marknaden. Det handlar om den nya generationen företagare som sermöjligheten i att tjäna pengar samtidigt som de driver verksamheter som skapar ettmervärde för samhället. Samhällsentreprenörerna i Sverige står dock framför ett problem,att på ett hållbart sätt finansiera sin verksamhet.Denna studie syftar till att kartlägga hur finansieringen av svenska samhällsentreprenörerser ut. Undersökningen bygger på en kvalitativ studie där vi har undersökt tresvenska verksamheter, som faller under definitionen ”samhällsentreprenör”. Ämnet ärfortfarande relativt nytt och okänt och det har därför inte bedrivits mycket forskningkring detta. Vi har därför, som underlag för vår undersökning, använt oss av en studiesom gjordes 2003 i Storbritannien.Då vi endast undersökt tre verksamheter har vi inte kunnat dra några generella slutsatserför hela den svenska marknaden. Dock indikerar resultatet av vår undersökning attden svenska marknaden, för att finansiera denna typ av verksamhet, är bristfällig och ibehov av utveckling. För såväl förutsättningarna som efterfrågan på samhällsentreprenörerfinns redan idag och denna grupp företagare ser ut att öka inom den närmasteframtiden.

Tutte le organizzazioni hanno un impatto che riguarda l'economia, la società e l'ambiente naturale. Gli studi accademici di diversi filoni di ricerca (ad business and society studies, accounting, strategic management) propongono diverse definizioni di "impatto sociale" (Latane, 1981; Burdge & Vanclay, 1996;. Emerson et al, 2000;. Clark et al, 2004 ). Tutte queste definizioni descrivono, in modo più o meno esplicito, il concetto di "cambiamento", essendo basati sulla “teoria del cambiamento” (Weiss, 1972; Anderson, 2004) - vale a dire, il cambiamento che un'organizzazione può produrre nel modo di vivere delle persone, nella cultura, personale nelle aspirazioni, ma anche rispetto alla comunità, ai sistemi politici, l'ambiente, la salute e il benessere. La misurazione dell’impatto sociale conduce l'organizzazione a considerare i cambiamenti prodotti sugli stakeholders come risultato di una serie di rapporti causa-effetto proposteidalla teoria del cambiamento. L'obiettivo della misurazione dell’impatto sociale è quindi di capire, in termini sociali, ambientali ed economici, i cambiamenti che si sono verificati nella vita delle parti interessate, a causa di attività di organizzazioni, al fine di comunicarlo (Nicholls et al, 2009). Nonostante il crescente interesse sulla misurazione dell'impatto sociale, la produzione accademica sull'argomento è ancora scarsa. La presente tesi contribuisce alla discussione in corso, concentrandosi sulla teoria, i concetti e strumenti per misurare l'impatto sociale. In particolare, due contesti di analisi sono presi in considerazione: la finanza etica e l'educazione all'imprenditorialità. La tesi si compone di tre articoli. La prima ricerca vuole fornire una revisione della letteratura sul tema della misurazione dell'impatto sociale nel contesto della finanza etica, il secondo articolo è una ricerca-azione su una metodologia per misurare l'impatto sociale delle banche etiche sviluppata attraverso lo studio del caso estremo di Banca Popolare Etica, e la terza ricerca riguarda il contesto della formazione imprenditoriale e mira a studiare l'impatto di un programma MBA sugli antecedenti dell’intenzione all'imprenditorialità di studenti in Ghana. Più in dettaglio, il primo documento è intitolato " Review of impact assessment methodologies for ethical finance ". Questo documento fornisce una rassegna completa della letteratura sulla misurazione dell'impatto sociale nelle banche etiche. In particolare, si discute l'approccio delle banche etiche all’impatto sociale e alla misurazione dell'impatto sociale considerando diversi studi e analisi, poi proponendo un elenco di indicatori e outcomes da utilizzare per evidenziare l'impatto sociale delle attività delle banche etiche. Si segnalano, inoltre, alcune lacune nella letteratura che abbiamo posto come questioni aperte per la ricerca futura. La ricerca è stata portata avanti con due partner: la Fédération Européenne des Banques et Ethiques Alternative (FEBEA) e l’Institute of Social banks (ISB). Il titolo della seconda ricerca è: " Measurement of social impact in financial institutions: the case of Banca Popolare Etica ". Si tratta di una ricerca-azione su una metodologia per misurare l'impatto sociale delle banche etiche, fondata sul caso di studio di Banca Popolare Etica. Usiamo un set di dati composto da 1.385 organizzazioni e 1324 individui, beneficiari dei finanziamenti, per studiare la misurazione dell'impatto sociale dei progetti finanziati. Integrando in un unico processo di valutazione (sia quantitative che qualitative) diverse metodologie generalmente utilizzate singolarmente per la misurazione di impatto sociale (Social Return on Investment (SROI), Impact Reporting Investment Standards (IRIS) e storytelling), il caso mostra come i limiti tradizionali di metodologie per misurare l'impatto sociale possono essere superati. Il terzo e ultimo studio è intitolato " Does entrepreneurial education impact on antecedents of entrepreneurial intention? An analysis of an Entrepreneurship MBA in Ghana". Questo studio ha lo scopo di analizzare gli effetti di un programma di educazione all'imprenditorialità, sugli antecedenti dell'intenzione imprenditoriale di studenti in un paese in via di sviluppo. Lo studio analizza i risultati di una ricerca di impatto eseguita con partecipanti di uno specifico programma di formazione all'imprenditorialità: il "E4impact MBA", tenuto dal l'Istituto Cattolico di Business and Technology - CIBT in Accra, Ghana. Il metodo misto impiegato, era un approccio esplicativo (Creswell, Plano Clark et al, 2003), con un disegno quasi-sperimentale (Cohen e Manion, 1989) con test pre e post e misure di cambiamento auto-percepito. Abbiamo valutato i cambiamenti nelle caratteristiche psicologiche imprenditoriali (Need for achievement, Self-efficacy, Locus of control; Risk taking propensity; Tolerance for ambiguity) e competenze e conoscenze personali (Creatività, Conoscenza, Flessibilità, Networking e analisi) sul modello esteso della Teoria del Comportamento Pianificato. L'analisi mostra che il programma di educazione all'imprenditorialità ha un forte impatto sugli antecedenti psicologici e cognitivi delle intenzioni imprenditoriali. Quindi, la partecipazione al programma di educazione all'imprenditorialità può influenzare positivamente le intenzioni imprenditoriali degli studenti e il controllo comportamentale percepito sostenendo l'idea che le università hanno un ruolo fondamentale nel plasmare e promuovere le intenzioni imprenditoriali e le abilità attraverso programmi di formazione all'imprenditorialità. / All organizations have impacts that affect economy, society and the natural environment. Academics from different streams of research (i.e. business and society studies, accounting, strategic management) propose several definitions of “social impact” (Latané, 1981; Burdge & Vanclay, 1996; Emerson et al., 2000; Clark et al., 2004). All these definitions describe, more or less explicitly, the concept of “change”, being each one based on the Theory of Change (Weiss, 1972; Anderson, 2004) – i.e., the change that an organization can produce in people’s way of life, culture, personal and property rights, fears and aspirations, but also with respect to community, political systems, environment, health and wellbeing. The measurement of social impact leads the organization to consider the changes on stakeholders as a result of the set of cause-effect relations proposed by the theory of change. The objective of social impact measurement thus is to understand, in social, environmental and economic terms, changes that have occurred in stakeholders’ lives because of organizations activities, in order to communicate it (Nicholls et al, 2009). Despite a growing interest on social impact measurement, academic production in the topic is still scarce. The present Ph.D. thesis contributes to the ongoing discussion by focusing on the theory, concepts and tools to measure social impact. In particular, two context of analysis are at issue: ethical finance and entrepreneurship education. The work consists of three papers. The first research wants to provide a review of the literature on the issue of measuring the social impact in the context of ethical finance, the second paper is an action research on a methodology for measuring the social impact of ethical banks developed through the extreme case study of Banca Popolare Etica, and the third research concerns the context of entrepreneurial education and aims at studying the impact of an MBA program on the antecedents of entrepreneurship intention of students in Ghana. More in details, the first paper is entitled “Review of impact assessment methodologies for ethical finance”. This paper provides a comprehensive review of the literature on measuring the social impact in ethical banks. Specifically, we discuss the approach of ethical banks to social impact and social impact measurement considering several studies and frameworks of analysis, then proposing a list of indicators and outcomes to be used to highlight the social impact of ethical banks’ activities. We also point out some gaps in the literature that we left as questions open for future research. The research was carried on with two partners: the Fédération Européenne des Banques Ethiques et Alternatives (FEBEA) and the Institute of Social banks (ISB). The title of the second paper is: “Measurement of social impact in financial institutions: the case of Banca Popolare Etica”. This is an action research on a methodology for measuring the social impact of ethical banks, grounded on the case study of Banca Popolare Etica. We use a dataset of 1,385 organizations and 1,324 individuals, recipients of funding, to study the measurement of the social impact of the projects funded. Integrating in a single assessment process (both quantitative and qualitative) various methodologies generally singularly used for the measurement of social impact (Social Return on Investment (SROI), Impact Reporting Investment Standards (IRIS) and storytelling), the case shows how the traditional limitations of methodologies to measure social impact can be overcome. The third and last study is entitled “Does entrepreneurial education impact on antecedents of entrepreneurial intention? An analysis of an Entrepreneurship MBA in Ghana”. This study has the aim to analyze the effects of an entrepreneurship education program, on the antecedents of entrepreneurial intention of students in a developing country. The study analyzes the results of an impact research conducted with participants to a specific entrepreneurship education program: the “E4impact MBA”, held by the Catholic Institute of Business and Technology – CIBT in Accra, Ghana. The mixed method design employed, was an explanatory approach (Creswell, Plano Clark et al., 2003) with a quasi-experimental design (Cohen and Manion, 1989) featuring both pre-post tests and self-perceived change measures. We assessed changes in entrepreneurial psychological characteristics (Need for achievement, Self-efficacy, Locus of control; Risk taking propensity; Tolerance for ambiguity) and personal skills and knowlwdge (Creativity, Knowledge, Flexibility, Networking and Analysis) following the extended model of the Theory of Planned Behaviour. The analysis shows that the entrepreneurship education program has a strong impact on psychological and cognitive antecedents of entrepreneurial intentions. That is, participation in entrepreneurship education program can positively influence students’ entrepreneurial intentions and perceived behavioral control supporting the idea that universities have a key role in shaping and fostering entrepreneurial intentions and abilities through entrepreneurship education program.

The commons is a concept increasingly used by practitioners and social activists with the promise of creating new collective wealth (Bollier & Helfrich, 2014; De Angelis, 2003; Hardt & Negri, 2009; Klein, 2001). In recent years, a variety of scholarly research explained the different ways of organizing commons (Van Laerhoven & Ostrom, 2007). To that end, many streams of inquiry have emerged in various areas: organization theory (Ansari et al. 2013; Fournier, 2013; Tedmanson et al. 2015), institutional economics (Hess, C. & Ostrom, 2011; Ostrom, 1990, 2005, 2010), political philosophy and legal studies (Dardot & Laval, 2014; Holder and Flessas, 2008; Hardt & Negri, 2009), nonprofit studies (Aligica, 2016; Bushouse et al. 2016; Lohmann, 2014, 2016) and business ethics (Argandoña, 1998; Melé, 2009, 2012; O’Brien, 2009; Sison & Fontrodona, 2012; Solomon, 2004). However, these different theories are usually conceived and used separately. Empirical research on commons has mainly focused on natural resources at local and global levels (Ansari et al. 2013; Cody et al. 2015; Cox & Ross, 2011; Galaz et al. 2012; Ostrom, 1990, 2010; Poteete et al. 2010), and also on digital and scientific resources (Benkler, 2006; Boyle, 2008; Cook‐Deegan & Dedeurwaerdere, 2006; Coriat, 2015; Hess & Ostrom, 2011). Despite a long research tradition in local community organizations, there is little empirical scientific knowledge that uses the lens of the commons to study shared resources that are neither natural nor informational in nature. This dissertation aims to fill these gaps by analyzing social finance services and organizations from an interdisciplinary perspective. The aim is to understand whether communities can create financial commons. By analyzing the processes involved, the dissertation sheds light on the social and institutional components enabling the creation of human-made commons. We focus on community organizations linked to the solidarity economy movement in Brazil. Such movement aims to promote socio-economic alternative organizations, especially for poverty alleviation and inequality reduction.More specifically, the dissertation identifies the nature of two kinds of shared financial resources––microcredit services and complementary currencies––and looks at the functioning of community arrangements that provide them, the community components mobilized for creating commons organizations, and the institutional work strategies developed by intermediary organizations to adjust the scale of these social finance services.The dissertation is structured in four chapters, each of which addresses different research questions and uses different methods and units of analysis. The first chapter is conceptual and based on a literature review on complementary currencies in order to identify the commons dimensions of seven complementary currency systems. The second chapter is an in-depth single case study of Banco Palmas, a Brazilian community bank. This chapter analyzes the transformative power of governance on private goods when managed by self-governed grassroots organizations. Chapter three is a comparative case study of five community banks that focuses on the community components involved in creating commons as a grassroots response to contested market and state institutions. The final chapter focuses on the diffusion and institutionalization of social finance in Brazil and the role played by five intermediary organizations in this process.Starting from the observation that there is no definition of financial commons, Chapter 1 – Money and the Commons: Lessons from Complementary Currencies – proposes to assess the commons dimensions of monetary systems created and managed by local organizations. Specifically, we investigate the organizational features of seven complementary currency systems by making use of two main theoretical frameworks that are usually separate: the new commons in organization studies and the common good in business ethics. The findings show that these alternative monetary systems and organizations promote the common interest through the creation of new communities and can therefore be considered as commons according to the common good framework. Nevertheless, only systems relying on collective action and self-management fulfill the new commons framework. This allows us to suggest two new categories of commons: “social commons”, which fulfills both the new commons and the common good frameworks, and the “commercial commons”, which that fulfill the common good but not the new commons framework. Building on this, we define an ethos of the commons as a principle that consists in organizing commons practices through both collective organization and ethical concern for human flourishing.Chapter 2 - A Case Study of Microfinance and Community Development Banks (CDBs) in Brazil: Private or Common Goods? - looks at how governance mechanisms of self-managed community organizations affect the characteristics of microcredit services. Based on field research in Brazil, this chapter uses Elinor Ostrom’s design principles of successful self-governing common-pool resource organizations to analyze community banks’ microcredit systems. Our results suggest that private goods could be altered when governed by community self-managed enterprises. They become hybrid goods because they mix the characteristics of private and common goods. This change is facilitated by specific organizational arrangements, such as self-governance, that emerge from grassroots dynamics and the creation of collective-choice arenas. These arrangements help strengthen the inclusion properties of nonprofit microcredit services.In order to identify what components enable commons creation, we conduct a comparative case study of five Brazilian community banks in Chapter 3 – Building Commons in Community Enterprise: The Case of Self-Managed Microfinance Organizations. We analyze how community enterprises create commons whereas market and state institutions reproduce exclusion and inequalities. Our results suggest that four components are required to establish a new organization of commons: collective decision-making, community social control, servant leadership, and desire for social change. Building on this, we develop a model of commons organization and explain why these organizations are substitutes for existing marginalizing institutions. This study contributes to the literature by examining new elements for commons creation and shedding light on the emergence of new institutional arrangements for social change. Finally, after looking at commons institutional arrangements at local level in communities, we examine how commons organizations diffuse, institutionalize and organize in networks for consolidating their activities. Chapter 4 - Institutional Change and Diffusion in Institutional Plurality: The Case of Brazil’s Solidarity Finance Sector – explains how intermediary organizations help in this process. More precisely, we analyze the institutional work strategies deployed by five intermediary organizations in the Brazilian plural institutional context, where autonomous local state agencies and banks influence community banks' activities. We show how intermediary organizations support the institutionalization of community development banks (CDBs) through diffusing these organizations in different communities, performing external institutional work with governments and public banks at national and local levels, and accomplishing internal institutional work through structuring CDBs and CDB networks. / Doctorat en Sciences économiques et de gestion / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

En un peu moins de trente ans, les modalités de financement du système de retraite ont été complètement bouleversées. Les nouvelles règles en vigueur se caractérisent non seulement par leur instabilité et leur complexité, mais elles ont en outre eu pour effet d’écarter le système de retraite de sa logique initiale. Alors que l’organisation administrative et financière mise en place à la Libération avait pour objectif de concrétiser une vision essentiellement contributive, corporatiste et équitable de la prise en charge du risque « vieillesse », les réformes intervenues depuis le début des années 1990 s’inscrivent dans une toute autre logique, davantage fondée sur l’idée de redistribution, d’universalisme et d’égalité en droit. La présente étude vise à démontrer que les modalités de financement du système de retraite ne sont pas neutres. Des mesures qui apparaissent au premier abord comme étant essentiellement techniques et comptables vont en réalité pouvoir renforcer les principes sur lesquels repose la prise en charge du risque « vieillesse » ou au contraire, les affaiblir. Au-delà, c’est toute une conception politique et idéologique de la retraite qui est en jeu. Avant de mener l’indispensable réforme du système de retraite, il est donc important de prendre conscience de la signification et de la portée des différentes techniques financières qui existent. Ce n’est qu’à cette condition que pourra être engagée une réforme cohérente, capable de garantir l’équilibre des comptes sociaux tout en respectant un cadre normatif et idéologique clairement posé et assumé. / In just under thirty years, the means of financing the retirement pension system have completely changed. The rules currently in force are characterised not only by their instability and complexity, but also by the fact that they suppose a total departure from the original rationale behind said system. Whereas the administrative and financial structure set up during the Liberation sought to instil an essentially contributive, corporativist and equitable scheme to cover the risk of “old age”, the reforms introduced since the beginning of the 1990s respond to an entirely different logic, more based on the concept of redistribution, universalism and equality in the eyes of the law. The present study aims to show that the means of financing the pension system are far from neutral. Provisions that at first glance can seem to be of a quintessentially technical or accounting nature in fact serve to reinforce, or even to weaken, the underlying principals of how to cover the risk of “old age”. Thereafter, there is a entire political and ideological vision of retirement in play. Before carrying out the much-needed reform of the pension system, it is therefore vital that we are aware of the import and scope of the various financial techniques that currently exist. Only by doing so can we pave the way for a coherent reform of the system, which is able to guarantee the balance of social accounts whilst also adhering to a regulatory and ideological framework that is clearly implemented and assumed.