Framing Impact: Exploring Frames and Framing in UK Retail Impact Investment Advice

Whittle, Alan Geoffrey (2025) Framing Impact: Exploring Frames and Framing in UK Retail Impact Investment Advice. Doctoral thesis (PhD), Manchester Metropolitan University.

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Abstract

Responsible Investments (RI) are no longer considered the “lunatic fringe” of the investment world. Impact Investing, as part of this panoply, seeks to achieve measurable non-financial returns alongside financial return. With two dimensions of return, decision-making may differ from that of other forms of RI. Drawing on the work of Kahneman and Tversky (1979) in respect of reference-points and cognitive frames and their applicability to financial planning (Pompian, 2012a), this research seeks to understand the involvement of these factors in decisions pertaining to the non-financial dimensions of advised Impact Investing. Approaching this abductively and within the framework of a relativist-constructionist phenomenology, the research utilises Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis (Smith, Flowers and Larkin, 2009) in developing an understanding of the complex experiences of participants. The evidence presented, rich in metaphorical language and wide-ranging interpretations of what Impact Investing really is, suggests non-financial reference-points exist and are capable of creating decision-impacting frames. Investor participants appear to be loss-averse in respect of these reference-points, in that they do not want to see things get worse than they already perceive them to be. As frames also exist for advisers, these can result in paternalistic framing (Sunstein, 2014) of Impact both as a means to address climate change or to change the world. The descriptive Theory of Advised Retail Impact Investing developed shows how these elements come together to explain what makes investors choose to invest in Impact and the resulting type of Impact they invest in. The theory also shows how the use of language, both in understanding advice relationships and for the framing of mental accounts, has wider implications for both financial planning theory and practice.