Kamil Michlewski’s research while affiliated with Northumbria University and other places

Design is now the key driver of innovation and change within organisations across the globe. Learn how, when and why to use design to drive change in your organisation. TRANSFORMATIONS: 7 Roles to Drive Change by Design documents how design is being used to support change across different organisations, countries and sectors, sharing the stories of experts in their fields at varying stages of their transformative journeys. We feature 13 organisations including Steelcase, Spotify, Deloitte Australia, SAP, Telstra, US Department of Veterans A airs and Accenture & Fjord.

This paper empirically explores what constitutes design attitude. Previous studies have called on managers to adopt such an attitude in creating products, services and processes that are both profitable and humanly satisfying. However, what a design attitude actually is made of has not been researched. In this study I therefore investigate the nature of this attitude, as displayed by professional designers. Interview data from senior designers and managers from four internationally recognized, design-led organizations ( IDEO, Nissan Design, Philips Design and Wolff Olins) are collected in order to characterize the likely shape of a work-based attitude promoted by designers themselves. The five theoretical categories characterizing design attitude that arise from the data are: 'Consolidating multidimensional meanings', 'Creating, bringing to life', 'Embracing discontinuity and open-endedness', 'Embracing personal and commercial empathy' and 'Engaging polysensorial aesthetics'. Finally, the implications of these findings for organization research are discussed.

This paper explores the process of undertaking a PhD within the framework of the UK design education system, by examining it from two different perspectives. The authors come from different educational backgrounds, representing emic and etic perspectives respectively. Their viewpoints are triangulated and used as a basis for discussion around the following question: How well does design education prepare students for research-based activity? In addition, the historically dominant model in design education, which focuses mainly on vocational skills, is interrogated. On the one hand, the authors observe that this model is ill-equipped to provide designers with the critical skills and knowledge required for research-based projects. On the other hand, the authors recognize that traditional research-led education can result in a procedural and cognitive straitjacket. Discussion surrounding these issues will be presented in a case study format and used to inform further discussions on the role and wider influences of research in design education.

This paper explores attributes of design derived from previous research. It investigates an identified set of attributes by subjecting them to an empirical analysis. Case studies conducted among academics and consultants, in the fields of management and design are aimed at establishing what is the perceived emotional investment in these attributes. By combining the evidence gathered from statistical analysis of questionnaires and content analysis of discussions within focus groups, we have identified a potentially distinct group of values shared by designers. These include values concerning: visual thinking, intuitiveness, aesthetics, artistic creativity, emotions, multisensoriality, sustainability of solutions and tacit knowledge. Although the results are not conclusive they provide an insight into which design-derived values might contribute to organizational cultures.