Abstract
Design thinking is a discourse that – at least within its managerial realm - has been described as the best way to innovate, and as a saviour of the economy! The claim suggests a magic wand; but maybe this is a situation of the Emperor’s new clothes – instead of being everything, it may become nothing. We do not assume this will happen; instead we relate the design thinking managerial discourse to the discourse of design thinking within the design research area. We observe that the managerial discourse has a surface and popular character and is less academically anchored than the designerly one. Also, the managerial discourse seldom refers to the designerly one and thereby hinders cumulative knowledge construction, and this makes it easy to criticize from an academic perspective. We find five different discourses of “designerly thinking” or ways of making sense of what designers do in practice that have distinctly different epistemological roots. These different discourses do not stand in competition with each other but could be developed in parallel.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Title of host publication | Conference Proceedings of the Cambridge Academic Design Management Conference CADMC 2011 |
| Subtitle of host publication | New Thinking in Design Management |
| Editors | James Moultrie, Bernhard Dusch, Jonathan Johnson, Krista Keranen, Karen Miller |
| Place of Publication | United Kingdom |
| Publisher | University of Cambridge |
| Pages | 1-14 |
| Number of pages | 14 |
| ISBN (Print) | 9781902546797 |
| Publication status | Published - 2011 |
| Event | 1st Cambridge Academic Design Management Conference: New Thinking in Design Management - University of Cambridge, Cambridge, United Kingdom Duration: 7 Sept 2011 → 8 Sept 2011 |
Conference
| Conference | 1st Cambridge Academic Design Management Conference |
|---|---|
| Abbreviated title | CADMC 2011 |
| Country/Territory | United Kingdom |
| City | Cambridge |
| Period | 7/09/11 → 8/09/11 |