Diversifying finance research: From financialization to sustainability

Thomas Lagoarde-Segot

International Review of Financial Analysis, 2015, vol. 39, issue C, 1-6

Abstract: This paper seeks to overcome the apparent contradictions between global demand for sustainability and the structure of conventional financial discourse by putting forth a strategy for diversifying academic finance. It comprises four sections. I first situate academic finance within the broader spectrum of social sciences and highlight its ontological, epistemological and methodological assumptions. Second, I show that these assumptions, taken for granted within the field of finance, are the object of much debate within other fields – as is demonstrated by controversy regarding logical positivism, social ontology and performativity – which brings out the limitations of paradigmatic unity in finance. Third, I characterize diversification in finance with reference to the nested epistemological structure of scientific discourse. I argue that diversification is a process by which (i) finance research is extended to other existing paradigms in social sciences; (ii) new research metaphors are developed within the current paradigm; and (iii) puzzle-solving robustness is achieved. Fourth, I develop a research agenda for the diversification of academic finance. This agenda is broken down into themes, paradigmatic hypotheses, and research questions.

Keywords: Finance; Epistemology; Sustainability (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: B4 G00 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (35)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:finana:v:39:y:2015:i:c:p:1-6

DOI: 10.1016/j.irfa.2015.01.004

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