Youngbin Joo
University of Alberta
Financialization of the Economy and Clean Technology Innovation: The Paradox of Institutional Investor Ownership
ABSTRACT
This paper examines how the rise of shareholder value orientation driven by the financialization of the economy impacts corporate environmental innovation. Specifically, we investigate whether the growth of institutional investor ownership undermined ongoing managerial efforts to enhance clean technology innovation. Drawing variations in ownership structure, industry, and regional characteristics, we investigate under which conditions such relationship between institutional ownership and clean technology innovation were mitigated or amplified. We formulate several hypotheses that we test in data on a universe of U.S.-listed firms who participated in clean technology innovation from 1990 to 2004. This paper highlights the potential limitations to market logics in corporate environmentalism by presenting the paradox of institutional investor ownership: there are somehow fundamental tensions between ‘save for the future’ and ‘innovate for the future.’
BIOGRAPHY
Youngbin Joo is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Strategic Management & Organization at the Alberta School of Business, University of Alberta (Canada).
His research interests lie in the intersection of innovation, institution, and sustainability. He particularly focuses on the role of institutional environment for organizational resilience in sustaining innovation with novel social and environmental objectives. In the context of clean technology innovation and entrepreneurship, he investigates how variations in institutional environments and changes in economic environments, interacting with organizational characteristics, may shape such innovation rates among firms. Youngbin earned his master’s and bachelor’s degrees in Economics from McGill University in Canada.