Ph.D., Antioch University, 2021, Leadership and Change

The purpose of this study is to better understand how to influence capitalist attitudes and drive more capital towards social good. This is why we must explore the prospect of emancipating the capitalists from capitalism. This study identifies capitalism as a form of oppression that is contributing to a newly developed ethics of capital, a term introduced in this study. Emancipatory action research and general systems theory were employed as the primary approaches to engaging a group of venture capitalists and finance professionals in activities and dialogues. Value2 is the theory of action I use to influence the attitudes of the participants in the study. I developed the Emancipatory Action Map as a tool for capturing the epistemological process catalyzed by Value2. The findings identified common themes and contrasts, such as how participants rationalized their problem-solving, how they responded to the isomorphism between systems operating within capitalism, and how they experienced their own agency in relationship to the problem of driving more capital towards social good. This dissertation is available in open access at AURA, https://aura.antioch.edu/ and OhioLINK ETD Center, https://etd.ohiolink.edu/etd.

Committee: Jon Wergin PhD (Committee Chair); Aqeel Tirmizi PhD (Committee Member); Chris Benner PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: American Studies; Behavioral Psychology; Behaviorial Sciences; Black History; Black Studies; Business Administration; Economic History; Economic Theory; Economics; Ethics; History; Philosophy; Public Policy; Social Psychology; Systems Design; Systems Science