Figure 2.
The table contains five column headers labelled Check, Stage, Focus, Key Activities or Approaches, and Critical Questions. Six numbered stages are listed. Stage 1, Critical Ontology and Epistemology, focuses on philosophical foundations of reality and knowledge. Activities include acknowledging researcher positionalities, adopting critical or decolonial epistemologies, and challenging assumptions of objectivity. Questions include what is considered legitimate knowledge and whose voices are excluded. Stage 2, Critical Theorising, focuses on framing issues through critical lenses. Activities include applying theories, critiquing dominant ideologies, and reframing business and social impact issues as socio political struggles. Questions address dominant narratives and inequality. Stage 3, Critical Research Design and Methods, focuses on methodological integrity aligned with critical commitments. Activities include participatory and ethnographic methods, reciprocal stakeholder relationships, and emphasising ethics and inclusivity. Questions address control of the research process and participant roles. Stage 4, Critical Analysis and Co Interpretation, focuses on making sense of data with emphasis on power and meaning. Activities include critical discourse and contextual analysis, and identifying tensions, contradictions, and resistance. Questions address assumptions underlying the data and structures of power. Stage 5, Critical Co design of Social Impact Recommendations, focuses on co developing recommendations and impact with relevant communities and actionable insights grounded in social justice and systems change. Activities include stakeholder engagement, shared ownership, transformative recommendations, and advocacy for equity and sustainability. Questions address definitions of impact, collaboration, justice, practicality, and ethics. Stage 6, Critical Social Impact Activities, focuses on transforming findings into long term social impact. Activities include public scholarship, policy briefs, inclusive dissemination, and fostering long term community relationships. Questions address how results are shared, whether activities build collective power, and whether impact is lasting and ethical.Critical social impact (CSI) framework checklist
Source: Authors’ own work