Everybody wins? A discourse analysis of competing stakeholder expectations in Social Impact Bonds

This paper explores how diverse stakeholders frame their expectations of Social Impact Bonds (SIBs), as informed by a discourse analysis of 183 press releases relating to 29 SIBs across Australia, the U.K. and the U.S.A. The authors examine competing expectations in SIB press releases, showing how they differ between stakeholders, between institutional contexts, and how they evolve over time. Findings show that the ways private sector actors are prioritised through social finance discourses, in contrast to marginalised service providers, through the impact discourse. The authors finally demonstrate the ways different institutions shape SIB models, and suggest that the SIB model does not transfer in a standardised form across contexts.