Finance Reconsidered

New Perspectives for a Responsible and Sustainable Finance

Bernard Paranque, Roland Pérez, Bernard Paranque, Roland Pérez, William Sun

• Publisher: Emerald Group Publishing Limited
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9781785609800
• eBook ISBN: 9781785609794
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business Ethics
• Index: Business

As a response to ongoing economic, social and environmental crises, many private actors have enlarged their definition of 'value' to include environmental and social elements. Such practices, however, appear incompatible with the current epistemological structure of academic financial discourse. This paradox challenges us to reconsider the foundations of modern finance, particularly the dominant role of shareholders. The volume argues there is a need to turn the established order upside down. Studies in economics and finance have to be embedded in environmental and social welfare to answer the challenges we face, and there is a need for a radical break with the methodological individualism that dominates economics, management and (especially) finance. It is our responsibility to question social welfare when it is defined only as maximising shareholder value. Should we instead promote a substitute to the shareholder? How should we (re)define the concept of value? This volume serves as a stepping stone for rethinking academic finance, and attempts to carve out innovative paths for financial research in the 21st century.

Table of contents

• Front Cover
• Finance Reconsidered: New Perspectives for a Responsible and Sustainable Finance
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• List of Tables
• List of Figures
• List of Appendices
• List of Contributors
• About the Editors
• Editorial Advisory and Review Board⤀
• Acknowledgements
• Preface
• Part I: Introduction
• Part II: Critical Analysis of the Dominant Financial Paradigm
• Part III: Socially Responsible Investment, Micro-Credit, and Alternative Management
• Part IV: Finance, Ethics, and Society
• Part V: Conclusion
• About the Authors