Ethical Sensemaking in Impact Investing: Reasons and Motives in the Chinese Renewable Energy Sector

Abstract This article explores impact investing within the renewable energy sector. Drawing on ethical decision making and sensemaking, this contributes to an enhanced understanding of complex sensemaking process investors when facing plausible situations in a world contested truths. Addressing tensions faced by with mixed motives, study investigates way makers use context-specific reasons make sense shape investment (REI) process. represents initial attempt understand made (RE) sector using multi-stakeholder approach. Our findings show that prosocial, personal, reputational, economic motives are main drivers REI, prosocial personal being value-based, reputational evidence-based. We find three different modes (pragmatic, retrospective, forecasting), allowing for construction four noted above. These based RE academic discourse some key processes involved making, better underlying motivations