{"title":"From ‘if only’ to ‘what if’: An ethnographic study into design thinking and organizational change","authors":"Martijn Felder, Tineke Kleinhout-Vliek , Marthe Stevens , Antoinette de Bont","doi":"10.1016/j.destud.2023.101178","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>We aim to understand how public sector organizations practise ‘design thinking’ to respond to changing demands and develop alternative courses of action. The literature on design thinking is largely prescriptive; few studies analyse how change is actually brought about through situated design practices. Design scholars have therefore argued that such practices themselves should take centre stage as objects of analysis. We take an ethnographic approach to studying the design thinking journey of the Dutch Health Inspectorate, using participatory observations and interviews to collect our data. Drawing on the anthropological concept of ritualization, we identify two important mechanisms through which design thinking helped the Inspectorate disrupt existing organizational strategies and engage with stakeholders in a fundamentally new way.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":50593,"journal":{"name":"Design Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.2000,"publicationDate":"2023-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"1","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Design Studies","FirstCategoryId":"5","ListUrlMain":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0142694X23000194","RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"工程技术","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"ENGINEERING, MANUFACTURING","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 1
Abstract
We aim to understand how public sector organizations practise ‘design thinking’ to respond to changing demands and develop alternative courses of action. The literature on design thinking is largely prescriptive; few studies analyse how change is actually brought about through situated design practices. Design scholars have therefore argued that such practices themselves should take centre stage as objects of analysis. We take an ethnographic approach to studying the design thinking journey of the Dutch Health Inspectorate, using participatory observations and interviews to collect our data. Drawing on the anthropological concept of ritualization, we identify two important mechanisms through which design thinking helped the Inspectorate disrupt existing organizational strategies and engage with stakeholders in a fundamentally new way.
期刊介绍:
Design Studies is a leading international academic journal focused on developing understanding of design processes. It studies design activity across all domains of application, including engineering and product design, architectural and urban design, computer artefacts and systems design. It therefore provides an interdisciplinary forum for the analysis, development and discussion of fundamental aspects of design activity, from cognition and methodology to values and philosophy.
Design Studies publishes work that is concerned with the process of designing, and is relevant to a broad audience of researchers, teachers and practitioners. We welcome original, scientific and scholarly research papers reporting studies concerned with the process of designing in all its many fields, or furthering the development and application of new knowledge relating to design process. Papers should be written to be intelligible and pertinent to a wide range of readership across different design domains. To be relevant for this journal, a paper has to offer something that gives new insight into or knowledge about the design process, or assists new development of the processes of designing.