Management insights for tackling grand challenges: the case of climate-related financial risks in the financial investment industry

气候变化被主要经济学家称为人类历史上最严重的市场失灵，对人类福祉和经济财富造成灾难性影响。经过多年的忽视，作为经济核心的金融部门已经意识到这一挑战，认识到不将气候变化的考虑纳入金融决策会给金融投资和金融市场的稳定带来重大风险。现在，人们，特别是金融界领导人，越来越多地达成共识，认为气候变化是一种重大风险，需要有效地识别、衡量、监测并纳入金融决策。一个庞大的组织生态系统涉及实现必要的变革：（1）投资者需要改变评估、监测和应对风险的方式，（2）公司需要报告新的气候相关财务信息，（3）数据提供商和咨询公司需要开发新的前瞻性气候情景分析工具，（4）监管机构需要改变其监管和监督做法，（5）非政府组织正在改变其倡导做法，以支持这些发展。鉴于金融系统的高度相互关联性，这些组织面临的主要挑战是改变它们的工作方式，这种方式无法在如此大的规模上协调，而且气候变化固有的复杂性和不确定性使这种方式变得更加复杂。在此背景下，该项目研究了当组织陷入与其他组织的复杂互动网络时，如何解决大规模问题。它详细审查了在与其他组织的互动中出现的实际挑战，以及多个组织的地方实验如何相互作用并有助于对大规模问题采取新的集体办法（即，气候风险）。该项目采用了一种纵向定性研究方法，由四名研究人员组成的团队使用人种学方法实时记录多个组织应对气候风险的行动。在四年的时间里，该团队将收集详细的数据，并分析（1）金融投资者（例如，养老基金、保险公司、资产管理公司等），(2)金融数据提供商和咨询公司，（3）投资者网络，（4）非政府组织。数据收集将分三波展开，每波一年。第一波将侧重于气候风险领域的四个主要组织。在随后的两波中，数据收集将逐步扩大到总共覆盖约100个国家。12个组织。重点将是总部或位于英国的组织，在其他欧洲国家收集的数据有限。用于数据收集的民族志方法通过参与性观察（例如，从理论上讲，这项研究有助于在管理研究领域发展新的理论，即组织如何应对大规模的、复杂的社会问题，即所谓的“大挑战”。“从方法论上讲，它开发了新的社会科学研究方法，更适合捕捉当今组织面临的日益移动的和复杂的问题。实际上，它旨在为以下方面的行动提供信息：（1）政策制定者和监管机构，以使金融市场具有弹性和可持续性;（2）金融投资者，以尽量减少风险和保障回报;（3）咨询和数据提供者，以开发适当的工具和数据;（4）非政府组织，以开展有效的宣传。

Climate change has been referred to by leading economists as the greatest market failure in human history, with disastrous impacts on human well-being and economic wealth. After years of neglect, the finance sector, at the heart of the economy, has woken up to this challenge, realizing that not integrating considerations of climate change into financial decision-making produces significant risks for financial investments and the stability of financial markets. Now there is a growing consensus, especially amongst financial leaders, that climate change is a material risk and that it needs to be effectively identified, measured, monitored and integrated into financial decision-making. A large ecosystem of organizations is implicated in effecting the necessary changes: (1) investors need to change the way they assess, monitor and respond to risks, (2) companies need to report new climate-related financial information, (3) data providers and consultancies need to develop new tools for forward-looking climate scenario analysis, (4) regulators need to change their regulatory and supervisory practices, and (5) NGOs are changing their advocacy practices to support these developments. Given the high interconnectedness of the financial system, the major challenge of these organizations is to change what they do in a way that cannot be coordinated on this scale and that is complicated by the inherent complexity and uncertainty of climate change. Against this background, this project investigates how organizations can tackle large-scale problems when they are caught in a complex web of interactions with other organizations. It examines in detail the practical challenges that emerge in the interactions with other organizations and how the local experiments in multiple organizations interact and contribute to emerging collective approaches to the large-scale problem (i.e., to climate risk). The project draws on a longitudinal, qualitative research approach in which a team of four researchers uses ethnographic methods to document in real-time the actions of multiple organizations to address climate risks. Over the course of four years, the team will collect detailed data on and analyse the actions of (1) financial investors (e.g., pension funds, insurance companies, asset managers etc.), (2) financial data providers and consultancies, (3) investor networks, and (4) NGOs. Data collection will unfold in three waves of one year each. The first wave will focus on an initial set of four leading organizations in the area of climate risks. In the two subsequent waves, the data collection will gradually be extended to cover a total of approx. 12 organizations. The focus will be on organizations headquartered or located in the UK with some limited data collection in other European countries. Ethnographic methods for data collection accomplish deep immersion in the work of others through participant observation (e.g., observing meetings, social interactions and work at the desk), open-ended interviews and the collection of documents.Theoretically, this research contributes to developing new theory in the area of management studies on how organizations can tackle large-scale, complex, social problems, known as 'grand challenges.' Methodologically, it develops new social science research methods that are better suited to capture the increasingly mobile and complex issues facing organizations today. Practically, it seeks to inform the actions of (1) policy-makers and regulators to make financial markets resilient and sustainable; (2) financial investors to minimize risks and safeguard returns; (3) consultancies and data providers to develop appropriate tools and data; and (4) NGOs to develop effective advocacy.