Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-xbtfd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-10T13:41:41.275Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Design as communication in microstrategy: Strategic sensemaking and sensegiving mediated through designed artifacts

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 April 2013

John Stevens
John Stevens*
Affiliation:
School of Design, Northumbria University, City Campus East, Newcastle Upon Tyne, United Kingdom
*
Requests for reprints to: John Stevens, School of Design, Northumbria University, City Campus East, Newcastle Upon Tyne NE1 8ST, United Kingdom. E-mail: john.stevens@northumbria.ac.uk
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This paper relates key concepts of strategic cognition in microstrategy to design practice. It considers the potential roles of designers' output in strategic sensemaking and sensegiving. Designed artifacts play well-known roles as communication media; sketches, renderings, models, and prototypes are created to explore and test possibilities and to communicate these options within and outside the design team. This article draws on design and strategy literature to propose that designed artifacts can and do play a role as symbolic communication resources in sensemaking and sensegiving activities that impact strategic decision making and change. Extracts from interviews with three designers serve as illustrative examples. This article is a call for further empirical exploration of such a complex subject.

Keywords

CommunicationDesignSensegivingSensemakingStrategy
Type
Special Issue Articles
Information
AI EDAM , Volume 27 , Issue 2: Studying and Supporting Design Communication , May 2013 , pp. 133 - 142
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2013

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Blaich, R., & Blaich, J. (1993). Product Design and Corporate Strategy: Managing the Connection for Competitive Advantage. New York: McGraw–Hill.Google Scholar
Brown, T. (2008). Design thinking. Harvard Business Review 86(6), 84–92.Google ScholarPubMed
Buchanan, R. (1992). Wicked problems in design thinking. Design Issues 8(2), 5–21.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carlile, P.R. (2002). A pragmatic view of knowledge and boundaries: boundary objects in new product development. Organization Science 13(4), 442–455.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carlile, P.R. (2004). Transferring, translating, and transforming: an integrative framework for managing knowledge across boundaries. Organization Science 15(5), 555–568.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cooper, R., & Press, M. (1994). The Design Agenda: A Guide to Successful Design Management. Chichester: Wiley.Google Scholar
Crilly, N. (2010). The roles that artefacts play: technical, social and aesthetic functions. Design Studies 31, 311–344.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Crilly, N., Maier, A., & Clarkson, P. (2008). Representing artefacts as media: modelling the relationship between designer intent and consumer experience. International Journal of Design 2(3), 15–27.Google Scholar
Cross, N. (2001). Designerly ways of knowing: design discipline versus design science. Design Issues 17(3), 49–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Daft, R.L., & Weick, K.E. (1984). Toward a model of organizations as interpretation systems. Academy of Management Review 9(2), 284–295.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dunne, A. (1999). Hertzian Tales. London: Royal College of Art.Google Scholar
Dunne, A., & Raby, F. (2001). Design Noir: The Secret Life of Electronic Objects. Berlin: Birkhauser.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dutton, J.E., & Ashford, S.J. (1993). Selling issues to top management. Academy of Management Review 18(3), 397–428.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dutton, J.E., Ashford, S.J., O'Neill, R.M., & Lawrence, K.A. (2001). Moves that matter: issue selling and organizational change. Academy of Management Journal 44, 716–736.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dutton, J.E., & Jackson, S.E. (1994). Categorizing strategic issues: links to organizational action. Academy of Management Review 12(1), 76–90.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Eckert, C., & Boujut, J.F. (2003). The role of objects in design co-operation: communication through physical or virtual objects. Computer Supported Cooperative Work 12(2), 145–151.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fiss, P.C., & Zajac, E.J. (2006). The symbolic management of strategic change: sensegiving via framing and decoupling. Academy of Management Journal Archive 49(6), 1173–1193.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gioia, D.A., & Chittipeddi, K. (1991). Sensemaking and sensegiving in strategic change initiation. Strategic Management Journal 12(6), 433–448.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gioia, D.A., Thomas, J.B., Clark, S.M., & Chittipeddi, K. (1994). Symbolism and strategic change in academia: the dynamics of sensemaking and influence. Organization Science 5(3), 363–383.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hayes, R.H. (1990). Design: putting class into “world class.” Design Management Journal 1(2), 8–14.Google Scholar
Jarzabkowski, P. (2003). Strategic practices: an activity theory perspective on continuity and change. Journal of Management Studies 40(1), 23–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jarzabkowski, P. (2005). Strategy as Practice: An Activity-Based Approach. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jarzabkowski, P., & Whittington, R. (2008). A strategy-as-practice approach to strategy research and education. Journal of Management Inquiry 17(4), 282–286.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Johnson, G., Melin, L., & Whittington, R. (2003). Guest editors' introduction: micro strategy and strategizing: towards an activity-based view. Journal of Management Studies 40(1), 3–22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Klein, G., Moon, B., & Hoffman, R.R. (2006). Making sense of sensemaking: 1. Alternative perspectives. Intelligent Systems, IEEE 21(4), 770–773.Google Scholar
Kolko, J. (2010). Abductive thinking and sensemaking: the drivers of design synthesis. Design Issues 26(1), 15–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Liedtka, J. (2004, Winter). Strategy as design. Rotman Management, 12–15.Google Scholar
Lockwood, T. (2009). Design Thinking: Integrating Innovation, Customer Experience, and Brand Value. New York: Allworth Press.Google Scholar
Martin, R.L. (2009). Design of Business: Why Design Thinking Is the Next Competitive Advantage. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Business School Press.Google Scholar
Mintzberg, H. (1994). The Rise and Fall of Strategic Planning: Reconceiving Roles for Planning, Plans, Planners. New York: Free Press.Google Scholar
Narayanan, V.K., Zane, L.J., & Kemmerer, B. (2011). The cognitive perspective in strategy: an integrative review. Journal of Management 37(1), 305–351.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nosek, J.T. (2004). Group cognition as a basis for supporting group knowledge creation and sharing. Journal of Knowledge Management 8(4), 54–64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Olson, E.M., Cooper, R., & Slater, S.F. (1998). Design strategy and competitive advantage. Business Horizons 41(2), 55–61.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Phillips, P.L. (2004). Creating the Perfect Design Brief: How to Manage Design for Strategic Advantage. New York: Allworth Press.Google Scholar
Powell, T.C., Lovallo, D., & Fox, C.R. (2011). Behavioral strategy. Strategic Management Journal 32(13), 1369–1386.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rittel, H.W.J. (1972). On the planning crisis: systems analysis of the “first and second generations.” Bedrifts Okonomen 8, 390–396.Google Scholar
Rittel, H.W.J., & Webber, M.M. (1973). Dilemmas in a general theory of planning. Policy Sciences 4, 155–169.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rouleau, L. (2005). Micro-practices of strategic sensemaking and sensegiving: how middle managers interpret and sell change every day. Journal of Management Studies 42(7), 1413–1441.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schön, D. (1983). The Reflective Practitioner. London: Temple–Smith.Google Scholar
Searle, J. (1995). The Construction of Social Reality. London: Allen Lane.Google Scholar
Seidl, D. (2007). General strategy concepts and the ecology of strategy discourses: a systemic–discursive perspective. Organization Studies 28(2), 197–218.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Simon, H.A. (1969). The Sciences of the Artificial. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Spee, A.P., & Jarzabkowski, P.A. (2009). Strategy tools as boundary objects. Strategic Organization 7(2), 223–232.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Star, S.L., & Griesemer, J.R. (1989). Institutional ecology, “translations” and boundary objects: amateurs and professionals in Berkeley's Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, 1907–39. Social Studies of Science 19(3), 387–420.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Starbuck, W.H., & Milliken, F.J. (1988). Executives' perceptual filters: what they notice and how they make sense. In The Executive Effect: Concepts and Methods for Studying Top Managers (Hambrick, D.C., Ed.), pp. 35–65. Greenwich, CT: JAI Press.Google Scholar
Stevens, J., & Moultrie, J. (2011). Aligning strategy and design perspectives: a framework of design's strategic contributions. Design Journal 14(4), 475–500.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Walker, S. (2006). Sustainable by Design: Explorations in Theory and Practice. London: Earthscan/James and James Science.Google Scholar
Weick, K.E. (1995). Sensemaking in Organizations (Foundations for Organizational Science). London: Sage.Google Scholar
Weick, K.E. (2001). Making Sense of the Organization. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Whittington, R. (1996). Strategy as practice. Long Range Planning 29(5), 731–735.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Whittington, R. (2006). Completing the practice turn in strategy research. Organization Studies 27(5), 613–634.CrossRefGoogle Scholar