Page 102 - Design meets Business:An Ethnographic Study of the Changing Work and Occupations of Creatives

90 Design Meets Business
2.5.1. The importance of seeing designers as craftsmen
Our research expands on existing research and provides insight into the material practices of designers (Sutton & Hargadon 1996; Kelley 2001; Stigliani & Fayard 2010; Stigliani & Ravasi 2012; Fayard et al. 2017). In organizational studies of design, the key focus has been on design as a crea- tive process to investigate creativity and innovation (Sutton & Hargadon 1996; Stigliani & Fayard 2010; Hargadon & Bechky 2006), or as a brokering process to bring together diverse actors (Stigliani & Ravasi 2012), knowl- edge (Stigliani & Fayard 2010) or technologies (Hargadon & Sutton 1997). In these studies, it is demonstrated that artifacts can be used as ‘probes’, stimulating idea generation (Boland & Collopy 2004), as ‘boundary objects’ (Carlile 2002, 2004; Bechky 2003a; 2003b), or facilitating collec- tive sensemaking processes (Ravasi & Stigliani 2012). Our study extends such insights by arguing that artifacts as ‘boundary objects’ cannot only allow diverse people to share knowledge (Kelley 2001; Boland & Collopy 2004; Stigliani & Fayard 2010; Ravasi & Stigliani 2012), but also purposely keep diverse actors apart. For example, a fragment of our findings shows how a designer tried to maintain a sense of agency over the lay out of the final design by refusing to show her sketches of the board game Pensiopoly and delaying feedback meetings with other designers.
Further, our study responds to the call for research that helps under- stand how materiality and meanings are entwined in the work of designers (Fayard et al. 2017), by showing that designers do not only use material prac- tices intentionally but also unintentionally. Our study empirically illustrates how the designers cannot prevent themselves from using specific material practices, because it is so strongly connected to how they perceive their work and their belonging to the wider community of the craft. For example, the designers developed Pensiopoly not only to trigger creative processes but also because practicing their design skills allowed them to perfect their craft and identify with the wider occupation of (service) design.
Elaborating on this, the present study shows that assuming a dichotomy between human actors and non-human actors (artifacts) is problematic. Even though designers might use material practices instrumentally, they also perform certain material practices as a matter of habit. In arguing this, our study responds to recent calls in the organizational literature to move beyond instrumental views on artifacts, or “conceiving of visual artefacts as instruments in the hands of practitioners”, and teleological views on artifacts, or portraying tools as static entities that contain meanings and interpretations (Comi & Whyte 2018: 1059 - 1060). Instead, our study high- lights the importance of fully appreciating the entanglement of people and