Organising for Positive Social Change: The Study of a Small Creative Ethnic Minority Business

Abstract

Positive Social Change (PSC) refers to transformations that improve equity and inclusion across individuals, communities, and society. However, existing PSC discourse often overlooks how it is practiced in small creative ethnic minority businesses (EMBs), which remain underrepresented in the literature. This interdisciplinary study addresses that gap by using ethnography to explore a small creative EMB and applying Critical Systems Theory to understand its practices in the PSC context.The research finds that small creative EMBs promote PSC through two nuanced aspects of their practice: (1) constraint-induced agency and (2) the critical nature of their actions. Constraint-induced agency explains how the organisation adapts within constraints rather than operating outside them—navigating structural constraints, exercising resilience, managing tensions and contradictions, and shaping the lived experiences of both organisational and community members. These practices represent a distinct form of PSC, focused on transforming immediate working conditions under marginalised circumstances, and illuminate how PSC materialises across micro, meso, and macro levels.The critical nature of their actions refers to the outcomes of these practices—particularly in exposing embedded social hierarchies. This offers a more critical engagement with PSC, revealing how organisationally focused narratives can obscure the frameworks through which PSC is understood.The study therefore calls for recognising the context-specific ways small creative EMBs contribute to PSC, paying close attention to the social, cultural, and institutional conditions in which PSC unfolds. By understanding these organisations as latent change agents, the study advances a more inclusive and critically informed PSC discourse.

Date of Award	Apr 2025
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	Aston University
Supervisor	Monder Ram (Supervisor) & Caroline Moraes (Supervisor)