This thesis investigates the process of design absorption in an international company with no prior experience with the discipline. The starting point for the discussion is my first-person experience of working in a large engineering-based organisation. For six months I researched the Industrial Branding of Metso Oy, a Finnish b2b firm active in the minerals mining and processing market, as a member of the Global Marketing and Brand Team. As a designer, working under marketeers and collaborating with salesmen and field engineers meant introducing design as a systemic discipline to the organisation. Throughout the project to which I was assigned I had to meet the internal pre-existing expectations on the stylistic value of design work, while looking for ways to educate the firm on the strategic benefits of the discipline. The text opens with the setting of the project context and the initial request I received. It goes through the bases of design management, and it sheds some light on the business expectations on design. This allowed me to collect insights from the literature on how to successfully implement a design project. In order to achieve design absorption in the company, a bespoke approach was needed. In this thesis my project process and my results are first presented, then my own experience is used to reflect upon the designer capabilities that can ease the absorption activities. The analysis takes its perspective from the Organisational Theories and considers design management as a dynamic capability that firms can acquire. Using the “Design Management Absorption Model” developed by Claudia Acklin in 2011, my project is examined under a theoretical perspective to evaluate in the first place if design was actually absorbed, and in the second place what caused success or failure. This specific analytical framework was developed by Acklin through years of field research, collaborating with small and medium enterprises which had no prior design experience. It is composed of four main subsequent phases, each one characterised by a tangible indicator for its completion. As such, the model has been created with the intent of providing practitioners with a self-evaluation tool that can also give guidance throughout the process. Although my study was limited by a shortage of time and a small study sample, the analysis showed that in a large firm potential capabilities, such as design leadership, can be acquired through a pilot project. However, this means that more design-based activities in different departments are needed to gain enough internal support and fully absorb design management. In conclusion, learnings for practitioners and key findings for the discipline are extracted. The former is a set of advices deriving from my experience, that contributed to achieving design leadership absorption. The latter is a range of three classes of skills, each necessary to complete a phase of the Design Management Absorption Model.
Questa tesi esamina il processo di assorbimento del design in un’azienda internazionale, che non aveva mai avuto prima d’ora esperienze con questa disciplina. Il punto di partenza per la discussione è la mia esperienza lavorativa in prima persona in un’ampia organizzazione, strutturata secondo logiche prettamente ingegneristiche. Durante l’arco di sei mesi, ho portato avanti come membro del team Marketing e Brand Globale una ricerca sul branding di Metso Oy, una compagnia b2b finlandese attiva nel mercato estrattivo e della lavorazione mineraria. Lavorando per professionisti del marketing, collaborando con i responsabili vendite e i tecnici ingegneri direttamente all’interno del sistema produttivo-industriale ho introdotto, come progettista, nell’organizzazione dell’azienda, il design come disciplina sistemica. Durante il progetto che mi è stato assegnato ho dovuto soddisfare le aspettative preesistenti sul valore stilistico del design, ed allo stesso tempo educare la compagnia sui benefici strategici della mia professione. Il testo si apre contestualizzando il mio progetto e la richiesta iniziale che avevo ricevuto. Continua poi spiegando le basi del design management, e facendo luce sulle aspettative commerciali riguardo il valore del design. Ciò mi ha permesso di estrapolare idee dalla letteratura disciplinare per implementare con successo un progetto di design in ambiente aziendale. Per creare una situazione favorevole all’assorbimento del design ho avuto bisogno di metodi pensati espressamente a misura della realtà in cui operavo. Questa tesi presenta il processo del mio progetto ed i risultati ottenuti, i quali sono stati utilizzati per riflettere sulle capacità del designer utili a facilitare le attività di acquisizione da parte di un’organizzazione. La prospettiva di analisi è quella delle teorie organizzative, che considera il design management come una capacità dinamica acquisibile da parte di un’azienda. Utilizzando il “Design Management Absorption Model” sviluppato da Claudia Acklin nel 2011, il mio progetto viene esaminato in luce teorica per valutare prima di tutto se l’introduzione delle tecniche del design è effettivamente avvenuta, e in secondo luogo per capire cosa ne ha determinato il successo o il fallimento. Questo specifico framework d’analisi è stato generato dalla Acklin attraverso anni di ricerca sul campo, collaborando con piccole e medie imprese senza precedente esperienza con il design. Esso è composto da quattro fasi principali ordinate, ognuna delle quali è caratterizzata da un indicatore di completamento. Il modello infatti è stato creato con l’intento di fornire uno strumento di auto-valutazione ai professionisti, offrendo anche una guida attraverso il processo. Nonostante il mio studio abbia limiti temporali e nel ristretto campione di studio, l’analisi dimostra che una grande organizzazione può acquisire capacità potenziali, come la design leadership, attraverso un singolo progetto pilota. Ciò però implica che per completare l'acquisizione del design si devono organizzare ulteriori attività, in diversi dipartimenti, e creare un maggiore supporto interno. Per concludere, dall’analisi sono stati estratti insegnamenti per i professionisti e risultati chiave per la disciplina. I primi sono una serie di consigli derivati dalla mia esperienza, che hanno contribuito al recepimento di design leadership. I secondi sono tre categorie di capacità, ognuna delle quali è necessaria a completare una specifica fase del Design Management Absorption Model.
Experiencing the absorption of design. My involvement in an international Finnish company
BONETTI, MARTINA
2016/2017
Abstract
This thesis investigates the process of design absorption in an international company with no prior experience with the discipline. The starting point for the discussion is my first-person experience of working in a large engineering-based organisation. For six months I researched the Industrial Branding of Metso Oy, a Finnish b2b firm active in the minerals mining and processing market, as a member of the Global Marketing and Brand Team. As a designer, working under marketeers and collaborating with salesmen and field engineers meant introducing design as a systemic discipline to the organisation. Throughout the project to which I was assigned I had to meet the internal pre-existing expectations on the stylistic value of design work, while looking for ways to educate the firm on the strategic benefits of the discipline. The text opens with the setting of the project context and the initial request I received. It goes through the bases of design management, and it sheds some light on the business expectations on design. This allowed me to collect insights from the literature on how to successfully implement a design project. In order to achieve design absorption in the company, a bespoke approach was needed. In this thesis my project process and my results are first presented, then my own experience is used to reflect upon the designer capabilities that can ease the absorption activities. The analysis takes its perspective from the Organisational Theories and considers design management as a dynamic capability that firms can acquire. Using the “Design Management Absorption Model” developed by Claudia Acklin in 2011, my project is examined under a theoretical perspective to evaluate in the first place if design was actually absorbed, and in the second place what caused success or failure. This specific analytical framework was developed by Acklin through years of field research, collaborating with small and medium enterprises which had no prior design experience. It is composed of four main subsequent phases, each one characterised by a tangible indicator for its completion. As such, the model has been created with the intent of providing practitioners with a self-evaluation tool that can also give guidance throughout the process. Although my study was limited by a shortage of time and a small study sample, the analysis showed that in a large firm potential capabilities, such as design leadership, can be acquired through a pilot project. However, this means that more design-based activities in different departments are needed to gain enough internal support and fully absorb design management. In conclusion, learnings for practitioners and key findings for the discipline are extracted. The former is a set of advices deriving from my experience, that contributed to achieving design leadership absorption. The latter is a range of three classes of skills, each necessary to complete a phase of the Design Management Absorption Model.| File | Dimensione | Formato | |
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2017_12_Bonetti.pdf
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https://hdl.handle.net/10589/138257