Working Papers in Employment, Work and Finance: WPG08-14

Recasting the Sovereign Wealth Fund Debate: Organizational Legitimacy, Institutional Governance and Geopolitics

Ashby H.B. Monk

Contact:

School of Geography and the Environment, South Parks Rd., Oxford OX1 3QY, UK.

As government owned investment funds with a growing international presence, sovereign wealth funds' (SWFs) relevance to the evolving economic, political and financial landscape cannot be overstated. These government managed and sponsored investment funds challenge the received notions of practice and governance within traditional financial institutions. This has resulted in a crisis of legitimacy in numerous jurisdictions. In this article, I seek to evaluate how SWF legitimation might be achieved, recognizing that legitimacy occurs at two distinct scales: organizational/institutional and environmental/societal. In short, I conceptualize the interplay between organizational legitimacy and institutional governance in the context of SWFs. This is done through an interrogation of available literatures and a detailed case study of one of the largest and most influential SWFs in the world.

Keywords: Sovereign Wealth Funds, Finance, Governance, Geopolitics, Legitimacy.

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