Leading Innovation through Design: Proceedings of the DMI 2012 International Research Conference
Abstract
The 18th academic conference hosted by the Design Management Institute (DMI) of Boston, Mass., attracted a greater number of papers than any previous conference. The event was intended to highlight the importance of the contribution of design to organisational effectiveness and success, particularly in the ways that it can improve the new product development process,contribute to better strategic thinking and decision-making, and be an important element in the leader’s toolkit. The conference was a means for researchers and thinkers to celebrate the importance of design and to work towards becoming a credible and full participant in the work of organisations.We were proud and deeply honoured to have Professor Roger Martin, Dean of the Rotman School of Business at the University of Toronto, as our keynote speaker. He has been an inspirational thinker and one of the foremost and most passionate advocates of the methodologies and thinking of design as important and under-utilised organisational resources.Our goal was to create an inclusive conversation among academics from a variety of disciplines, including business (organizational behavior, strategy, marketing, and operations) and design management (design strategy, product design, brand identity,communications, interactive design, user experience, architecture, and environmental design). We aimed to advance the state of the art in design management research, theory, and practice, and produce a significant contribution to this exciting and fast-developing field. Businesses are changing; manufacturers are becoming service providers and services are focusing increasingly on experiences.Organizations, in both the profit and the social sector, are seeking competitive advantage through innovation in their offerings,structure, processes, and business models. We believe that this was an appropriate time to convene a gathering of academics to take a critical look at how to bring a scholarly lens to the ways that design may help to both shape and implement innovation in these emerging developments.The theme of the conference, “Leading Innovation through Design,” clearly attracted management theorists as well as well as design theorists, as it was intended to do. The conference organisers, in locating it close both physically and in terms of time alongside the management community’s main academic conference – the AOM – hoped to attract ‘mainstream’ management researchers to contribute to the design management research conversation. The organisers believe that design management research has been undeservedly neglected by management theorists. The result was a large number of submissions of top quality, interesting, and rigorous papers. A total of 195 submissions were received from 36 countries and 133 universities and research institutes. These submissions were blind reviewed. Approximately 45% were accepted for presentation of full papers at the conference, and are published in these proceedings.
The conference was organised around these seven themes, and both full paper presentations and poster sessions were organised into these tracks:
Innovations in Design Research Methodologies, Management Processes
Bridging Research and Practice in the Management of Design
Design-Led Innovation in Business Models
Developing Design Thinking Skills
Design-Led Innovation in Products and Services
Design-Led Innovation in Organizations and the Workplace
Innovations in Design Management Education
We would like to thank a number of people and organisations who have been helpful in organising the conference and preparing this set of proceedings. These include John Tobin,
VP, Business Operations, from Design Management Institute who provided exceptional support in his role as Conference Secretary. We would like to thank Esther Dudley from Plymouth University, who encourage her students to produce artwork proposals for the conference identity, Sarah Essex whose design proposals were adopted, and every member of the International Scientific Review Committee who provided their time and expertise during the review process.This was a truly international team effort by conference committee whose members were dispersed across the world.
Conference Co-Chairs
Erik Bohemia, Jeanne Liedtka and Alison Rieple
The Design Thinking (DT) mindset, a fundamental aspect of User-Centred Design (UCD), is often presented as a powerful and accessible trigger for innovation. There is much discussion in the extant literature on the communication of the DT concept to non-design practitioners to encourage broader use of design-led innovation. The present study expands this discussion by exploring which DT mindset attributes are considered meaningful for non-design professionals in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). It presents a UCD intervention that embeds the DT mindset attributes to introduce design-led innovation to SMEs of the Welsh creative industries. Semi-structured interviews, non-participatory observation, and reflective open-ended questioning are utilised to analyse the impact of the intervention in supporting creative industry practitioners’ understanding of the DT mindset and design-led innovation approaches. Our findings demonstrate that the intervention has prompted participants to (i) challenge the idea of ‘ideas,’ (ii) frame failure as an option, (iii) learn to trust the process, (iv) acquire innovation self-efficacy, (v) view collaboration = learning, and (vi) change their perception of innovation. We discuss how these identified ‘mindset shifts’ are valuable toward building individual innovation capacities in non-design industries.
This second research project responds to the need to update the base of new theories, concepts, categories and definitions related to design and innovation management, focusing attention on three main axes: marketing, local development and entrepreneurship; which will be transversally analyzed by the approaches: education, profession, and research. At an international level, various academic, scientific and professional meetings are capitalized, which consolidated interest groups and networks of academics and scientists from the most prestigious universities in the field of design. This set of events and scientific networks, evolved and consolidated, are the main driver of dissemination of global knowledge on industrial design. Among the conferences, we highlight: Design Management Institute (DMI), Design Research Society (DRS), Design for Business: Research Conference (AGIdeas) and Academy for Design Innovation Management: Research Conference (ADIM). Regarding scientific networks, we emphasize the Academy for Design Innovation Management (ADIM), an independent organization that supports researchers on innovation management in design and focuses on: strategic design, innovation management, design thinking , design policy, service design and design for social change. RESUMEN. Este segundo proyecto de investigación, responde a la necesidad de actualizar la base de nuevas teorías, conceptos, categorías y definiciones relacionadas con la gestión del diseño y la innovación, centrando la atención en tres ejes principales: marketing, desarrollo local y emprendedorismo; los cuales serán transversalmente analizados por los enfoques: educación, profesión, e investigación. A nivel internacional, se capitalizan diversas reuniones académicas, científicas y profesionales, que consolidaron grupos de interés y redes de académicos y científicos de las universidades más prestigiosas en materia de diseño. Este conjunto de eventos y redes científicas, evolucionados y consolidados, son el principal motor de difusión del conocimiento global sobre diseño industrial. Entre las conferencias, destacamos: Design Management Institute (DMI), Design Research Society (DRS), Design for Business: Research Conference (AGIdeas) y Academy for Design Innovation Management: Research Conference (ADIM). En lo que respecta a redes científicas, enfatizamos a la Academy for Design Innovation Management (ADIM), organización independiente que sostiene a investigadores sobre la gestión de la innovación en el diseño y se centra en: diseño estratégico, gestión de la innovación, design thinking, política de diseño, diseño de servicios y diseño para el cambio social.
The relationships between paradigms, work plans and publications are identified as the most appropriate approach to analyze research in industrial design in a public sector scientific institution. Therefore, this thesis addresses the problem of research in industrial design of the Scientific Research Commission of the Province of Buenos Aires, through the study of a population of scholarship holders and researchers between the years 1998 and 2021. This research is based on a multiple case study with a descriptive, comparative and interpretative design, longitudinal retrospective and mainly of a qualitative type, which adds the quantitative analysis of some variables. Methodologically, it includes the construction and validation of a time line with the main milestones and paradigms considered by industrial design in the period, the conduct of semi-structured interviews and a collection of complementary and precise information from each subject of the target population, through who we consider to be the main protagonists of the institution's first 25 years in industrial design. RESUMEN. Las relaciones entre paradigmas, planes de trabajo y publicaciones se identifican como el enfoque más adecuado para analizar las investigaciones en diseño industrial en una institución científica del sector público. Por ello, esta tesis aborda la problemática de las investigaciones en diseño industrial de la Comisión de Investigaciones Científicas de la Provincia de Buenos Aires, mediante el estudio de una población de becarios e investigadores entre los años 1998 y 2021. Esta investigación se basa en un estudio de caso múltiple con un diseño descriptivo comparativo e interpretativo, longitudinal retrospectivo y principalmente de tipo cualitativo, que adiciona el análisis cuantitativo de algunas variables. Metodológicamente, se incluye la construcción y validación de una línea de tiempo con los principales hitos y paradigmas considerados por el diseño industrial en el período, la realización de entrevistas semiestructuradas y una recolección de información complementaria y precisa de cada sujeto de la población objetivo, a quienes consideramos como los principales protagonistas de los primeros 25 años en diseño industrial de la institución.
Il design sta assumendo sempre maggiore importanza come mezzo per differenziare i prodotti e per aumentarne il valore. Al tempo stesso, la rapidità con cui un prodotto viene proposto sul mercato dipende dalla capacità di integrare il design nel processo di produzione. Tuttavia, molte PMI «in particolare le nuove imprese a prevalenza tecnologica» mancano di competenze specializzate per la gestione del design, e spesso non dedicano abbastanza attenzione a questo aspetto. L'industria automobilistica, e le grandi società come la Philips e la Braun, gestiscono e misurano l'impatto del design come strumento innovativo. Per le PMI la gestione della creatività e del design è allo stesso stadio in cui si trovavano le tecnologie CAD/CAM dieci anni fa. Solo ora si comincia a risentire il valore commerciale di tali metodi. Negli ultimi anni, le imprese industriali che sono alla vanguardia nella produzione di certi prodotti, cominciano a sperimentare una forte concorrenza che non è altrettanto tutelata. Queste soffrono gli impatti della competenza che offre “quasi” gli stessi prodotti a prezzi più bassi, grazie a minori investimenti in ricerca & sviluppo, che riduce la sua struttura di costi. Le disposizioni legislative nazionali in materia di disegni e modelli sono tra loro assai diverse. A seguito dei recenti interventi normativi comunitari (Direttiva 13 ottobre 98/71/CE Parlamento Europeo e Consiglio, e relativo Regolamento) ai fini del buon funzionamento del mercato interno, stanno pervenendo ad un loro completo riavvicinamento. Entro il 28 ottobre 2001 gli Stati membri della Comunità sono chiamati ad emanare le normative necessarie per conformarsi alla Direttiva. Ai legislatori nazionali resta così poco tempo per attuare tale opera di armonizzazione. Nell’ultimo Convegno svoltosi a Treviso, si impegnava a focalizzare le disposizioni nazionali degli Stati membri che dovranno essere modificate al fine di assicurare il loro riavvicinamento. Esso ha costituito un’importante occasione per quanti si occupano di Design per evidenziare lacune e incertezze delle attuali normative e mettere in luce le esigenze della pratica. Dagli interventi e dalla Tavola Rotonda sono emerse indicazioni di grande ausilio agli operatori, ai legislatori e alle istituzioni comunitarie direttamente coinvolte. Questo lavoro intende sviluppare la situazione attuale del industrial design nell’ambito dell’Unione europea. Dimostrando la sua importanza nel settore industriale attraverso lo sviluppo di tematiche inerente le diverse politiche nazionale e comunitarie.