Page 259 - Design meets Business:An Ethnographic Study of the Changing Work and Occupations of Creatives

Summary 247
work in organizational settings, it is important to clarify how people are related to the material practices at work.
Further, Chapter 3 of this dissertation research suggests that interac- tions within creative occupations have changed as a consequence of new collaborations with business. Through an ethnographic study of the emer- gent occupation Service Design at the design firm Fjord, it is demonstrated that it might be difficult to define an occupational mandate when an occu- pation is not only emergent but also changing. Even though Service Design is a new occupation, due to its popularity in business, the occupation attracted new members. Whereas before it mostly included designers with a background in more traditional design studies (‘craft designers’), the new members often were designers with a background in business (‘business designers’). As a consequence, the designers had discussions among them- selves about ‘what a designer ought to do’. These discussions especially evolved around interactions with space, time and clients. For example, while the ‘business designers’ agreed to involve clients in their own design processes, the longer serving ‘craft designers’ preferred to keep their work a surprise for clients. In order move design projects forward despite these discussions, the designers established temporary settlements such as adap- ting to one approach, making a compromise or reframing their practices, among others. These findings suggest that the arrival of new members might lead to intra-occupational struggles that unsettle emergent defini- tions of the occupation. Hence, occupational mandates can be (re)nego- tiated at all times. To capture these struggles, it can be useful to adopt an ethnographic approach (Hammersley & Atkinson 2007; Bechky 2003a; 2003b; 2006) that allows to capture not only the frontstage but also the backstage behaviors in which occupational mandates are (re)negotiated.
The final empirical paper is presented in Chapter 4 of this dissertation. This study demonstrates that interactions between creatives and clients have been changing. Previously, creatives were asked to develop innova- tive solutions for their business clients, and hence put themselves at the center of creativity processes (Lingo & O’Mahony 2010; Jones et al. 2015; Cohendet & Simon 2016). Yet, as of today, creatives are increasingly asked to help business professionals unleash their own creative potential, and hence put business clients and not themselves at the center of creativity processes. In Chapter 4, I studied this changing role of creatives. Through an inductive study of creatives at the innovation hub Waag, I suggest that creatives act as ‘ceremony masters’ and help their clients become creative through facilitating liminality. Liminality refers to a transformative expe- rience in which people sense ambiguity, freedom and community, and hence is conducive to creativity and innovation (Garsten 1999; Sturdy et