Purpose
– The purpose of this paper is to examine the managerial implications of adopting a design attitude to organizational change.
Design/methodology/approach
– Based on an ethnographic study of a ...merger, the paper investigates the intricate interplay between architectural design and organizational change in the context of physically relocating an organization to a new office building. Emphasis is given to the socio-materiality of this double design process.
Findings
– The data suggests that taking a design attitude toward managing organizational change can allow different actors to participate in organizational design processes, releasing management from its traditional role as the keeper of the design solution.
Research limitations/implications
– Although based on a single case, the paper provides insights into the socio-materiality of organizational change that is relevant in other settings where developing new collective understandings of change processes are needed.
Practical implications
– A design attitude allows for multiple contributions to organizational change processes that can help reduce anxiety among those involved. The approach calls for openness, experimentation and the ability to balance different concerns. It can provide new ways of attending to resistance and produce valuable inputs to shaping organizations.
Originality/value
– This study contributes to the growing research on the role of material artifacts in organizational studies by providing a detailed account of organizational change as a socio-material achievement.
How do organizations in creative industries renew creative work for business innovation? What challenges do they experience in the process? Drawing on an eight‐month ethnography in an architectural ...practice, this article suggests that renewal of creative work takes place in two main trading zones: a creative business trading zone of managers and architects trading with the conception of architectural practice as a business, and a creative process trading zone of architects and process facilitators trading with the process of architectural design. We show how resolving challenges within and moving across trading zones enables managers and architects to renew the architectural design process and establish renewal as a business innovation. The study advances the understanding of innovation in creative industries by proposing trading zones as arenas for negotiating art‐business tensions and ‘tools’ for renewing creative work, to make way for business innovation while preserving the autonomy of the creative professionals.
•Spatial-material arrangements are intertwined with issues of identity construction.•Spacing identity captures the processual aspects of the social-material-spatial entanglements.•Spacing identity ...takes a performative approach to organizational and architectural change.•Design interventions can provoke dissonance productive for processes of change.
In this paper, we analyze how architectural design, and the spatial and material changes this involves, contributes to the continuous shaping of identities in an organization. Based upon a case study of organizational and architectural change in a municipal administration at a time of major public sector reforms, we examine how design interventions were used to (re)form work and professional relationships. The paper examines how engagements with spatial arrangements and material artifacts affected people’s sense of both occupational and organizational identity. Taking a relational approach to sociomateriality, the paper contributes to the further theorizing of space in organization studies by proposing the concept of spacing identity to capture the fluidity of identity performance.
•Spatial-material arrangements are intertwined with issues of identity construction.•Spacing identity captures the processual aspects of the social-material-spatial entanglements.•Spacing identity ...takes a performative approach to organizational and architectural change.•Design interventions can provoke dissonance productive for processes of change.
In this paper, we analyze how architectural design, and the spatial and material changes this involves, contributes to the continuous shaping of identities in an organization. Based upon a case study of organizational and architectural change in a municipal administration at a time of major public sector reforms, we examine how design interventions were used to (re)form work and professional relationships. The paper examines how engagements with spatial arrangements and material artifacts affected people's sense of both occupational and organizational identity. Taking a relational approach to sociomateriality, the paper contributes to the further theorizing of space in organization studies by proposing the concept of spacing identity to capture the fluidity of identity performance.
Kan rum, rummets design og de materielle artefakter, der anvendes til at visualisere et arbejdsrum, bruges som organisationsudviklingsværktøj? Denne artikel belyser nogle af de muligheder og ...udfordringer, der opstår, når ledelsen søger at iværksætte et organisationsudviklingsprojekt i forbindelse med et bygge- og indretningsprojekt; når ledelsen igangsætter ’en dobbelt designproces’, hvor hverken det organisatoriske design tages som præmis for arbejdsrummets design, eller omvendt.
There is a growing interest in design and design thinking within organization and management – amongst practitioners as well as within various research communities. The general argument is that managers may benefit from the approaches and ways of working traditionally associated with professional designers. Despite this interest, there is surprising little research on how design thinking can, practically, be brought into organizational contexts. In the paper, we focus on the concept of “managing as designing”, one of the ideas that has emerged from design thinking, and explore what this approach to the management assignment might mean in practice. The empirical context of our study is the merger between two municipal administra- tions that took place as a result of a Structural Reform of the Danish public sector in 2007. In this venture management’s aspiration was to combine two substantial devel- opment projects: the organizational merger and the development and construction of a new town hall to house the new administration. Organized user participation was an important means to this end that en- tailed engaging the staff in developing the interior design of the building; their future workspace. Based on ethnographic methodology, we explore how material artefacts in different ways brought the participants together, enabled them to visualize their work processes and influenced their experience of the spatial organization of their work. Drawing on insights from actor-network theory, we argue that designing organizations and organizational change is a socio-material effect rather than a ‘pure’ management decision. The material artefacts served as mediators, affecting staff members’ comprehension of their work and their workplace; an outcome that not only provided valuable input to the design process but also introduced new managerial challenges. Our analysis is illustrative of some of the processes involved in taking a design approach to management – engaging others in the design processes, working with multiple solutions and decentering of management. However, like other management approaches, a design approach is not without challenges. What is different is the conditions under which these challenges arise – through materially mediated interactions that can lead to new understandings of the organization and change the roles of those involved.
There is a growing interest in design and design thinking within organization and management -- amongst practitioners as well as within various research communities. The general argument is that ...managers may benefit from the approaches and ways of working traditionally associated with professional designers. Despite this interest, there is surprising little research on how design thinking can, practically, be brought into organizational contexts. In the paper, we focus on the concept of 'managing as designing', one of the ideas that has emerged from design thinking, and explore what this approach to the management assignment might mean in practice. Our analysis is illustrative of some of the processes involved in taking a design approach to management -- engaging others in the design processes, working with multiple solutions and decentering of management. However, like other management approaches, a design approach is not without challenges. What is different is the conditions under which these challenges arise -- through materially mediated interactions that can lead to new understandings of the organization and change the roles of those involved. Adapted from the source document.
As new technologies and organizational arrangements establish in the market for building design, these developments represent important changes - for design practitioners as well as for the ...institutions responsible for the education of designers. We explore the tension between
current mechanisms that aim to regulate the production of architects and architecture, and the fundamental tenets that characterize the profession. Providing data from a Danish school of architecture based on the Beaux-Art tradition, we use actor-network theory as a lens to explore how these
mechanisms produce requirements that challenge the traditional understanding of knowledge and methodology in architectural training. While architects are reliant on their ability to act according to market conditions, they are concurrently obliged to work according to the essential tenets
of their discipline. The article offers empirical illustrations and considerations of this dilemma facing the profession of architects and their practices, which is provisionally discussed in the light of a contemporary educational initiative.
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