THE CHALLENGES OF THE IMPACT INVESTING: A SYSTEMATIC REVIEW OF LITERATURE AND FUTURE RESEARCH AGENDA

There have been a lot of discussions about the Impact Investment Industry (III), and despite having multiple unique benefits, it is still not reaching mainstream investing. This industry is facing some unique challenges as it is a bridge between for-profit investing and charity/philanthropy. So, this study discovered the critical challenges faced by the different stakeholders in the impact investing highlighted by the existing literature. The study used Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines and included 116 documents published between 2009 till 2021. The descriptive, thematic, and content analysis is done to achieve the objective. After reviewing the existing literature, the authors found multiple stakeholders operating in the III, such as impact investors, social entrepreneurs, intermediaries, and regulatory bodies. They are exposed to different challenges which are unique to each stakeholder. The study categorized all the challenges into the seven major categories/factors: Portfolio Management, Human Resource, Compliance, Ecosystem Deficiency, Investors Management, Access to Capital, and Geographic challenges. The study recommended that to address the challenges in the III, the academician and practitioners should conduct joint research and consider country-specific analysis based on more extensive primary data. At last, the study concluded that a joint task force is to be formulated based on Triple Helix Model to strengthen the III ecosystem.