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Design for Entrepreneurship:
The Value of Design Research
for Better Cooperation
SYLKE LÜTZENKIRCHEN
BRIGITTE WOLF
UNIVERSITY OF WUPPERTAL, DEPARTMENT F
INDUSTRIAL DESIGN, DESIGN THEORY
FOCUS: METHODOLOGY, PLANNING AND STRATEGY
WUPPERTAL, GERMANY
SYLKE LÜTZENKIRCHEN
University of Wuppertal
Department F
Industrial Design
s.luetzenkirchen@
uni-wuppertal.de
PROF. DR. BRIGITTE WOLF
University of Wuppertal
Department F
Industrial Design
Strategic Design
Wuppertal, Germany
1WHAT WE WANT TO KNOW
5AUTHORS
2QUALITATIVE FIELD STUDY RESEARCH »FACES OF COOPERATION«
3DIFFERENT ANTIPODES IN
»FACES OF COOPERATION«
How do designers and entrepreneurs (SMEs) work together and
what are their needs and requirements? How can successful co-
operation be achieved?
Faces of Cooperation: Collaboration in Design Processes – an investigation of
disruption in the cooperation between designers and entrepreneurs
WORKING HYPOTHESIS
We assume that a careful analysis and description
of the needs and expectations, as well as the characte-
ristic performances and reactions of both designers
and entrepreneurs can open up new ways to bridge the
gap between their partly incompatible demands.
AIM
We want to analyze and describe the attitudes,
effects und reactions of designers and entrepreneurs
and to determine their subjective experience concer-
ning their relation to their cooperation. Thereby we
want to explore hidden aspects.
PROBLEM
Individuals are only limited informants about
their subjective points of view, because aspects and de-
tails hidden from the interviewee cannot be discovered
by a simple request for information. Furthermore
there is no sufficient knowledge for guided questions.
SOLUTION
We have developed a qualitative field study re-
search as an open instrument to explore hidden
aspects: »Faces of Cooperation«
This study enables a detailed description of the
collaborative interface between designers and entre-
preneurs (SMEs), describes different characteristics
of designer skills concerning their relation to entre-
preneur job requirements – and hence different core
phenomena in cooperation. Each of these phenomena
reveals two starkly opposed attitudes which are like
antipodes. If designers and entrepreneurs share an at-
titude and thus belong to the same antipode (see D),
cooperation can be more successful. Cooperation
turns out to be much more complicated if designers
and entrepreneurs belong to opposing (diagonally
crossing, see E) antipodes. Lack of awareness of these
diametrical oppositions can lead to misunderstanding
and unfulfilled expectations.
This study sheds light on the way in which SMEs
and designers (subjectively) experience things, eva-
luates new and hidden aspects of their cooperation,
and demontrates that if we achieve greater awareness
through design research and describe skills and requi-
rements in more detail, cooperation can be easier and
may generate a high degree of added value.
How can this model of five phenomena (motiva-
tion for change, project management, communi-
cation structures, creativity, added value) be
communicated to the target group? Further
questions concern the relevance of these findings
for designers education. and similarities to
psychological needs in user experience
(UX). The identification of these characteristics
could help designers who wish to improve their
relationship with their clients to become suc-
cessful in their working process. And finally the
question whether this model can be transferred
from SMEs to larger companies.
Aim:
to develop a theory of
something unknown
study
>Faces of
Cooperation<
entrepreneurs (sample):
product suppliers
service-providers
designers (sample):
interior designers
photographers
communication designers
product designers
evaluation:
grounded
theory
survey method:
narrative
interviews
4FURTHER STEPS
A_Cooperation: Different Core Phenomena inductively
identified
motivation
for change
pheno-
menon
3
coopera-
tion
pheno-
menon
1
pheno-
menon
4
pheno-
menon
2
pheno-
menon
5
C_How do designers and entrepreneurs work together?
Antipodes identified for three selected phenomena
design
edu-
cation
design
leading
psycho-
logy
vision
design
inte-
gration
motivation
for change
project
manage-
ment
coopera-
tion
motivation
for
change
pro-
tection
communi-
cation
B_Different Core Phenomena: antipodes identified from
the data
pheno-
menon
antipode A antipode B
designers
entrepreneurs
‘dass das ja alles auf
eine Marke und auf ein
Bild einzahlen soll.
‘das (zu viel Veränderung)
würde zu einer unglaubli-
chen Unruhe führen und
auch zu einer Ressourcen-
Knappheit, die einfach
nicht tragbar wäre
‘wenn jeder das macht,
was er für sich am tollsten
empfindet, dann haben wir
vielleicht ganz viele ein-
zelne tolle Sachen, aber
es ergibt einfach kein Ge-
D_How a successful cooperation is achieved?
designers
entrepreneurs
antipode A antipode B
E_How an unsuccessful cooperation is achieved?
designers
entrepreneurs
antipode A antipode B
y