Page 58 - Design meets Business:An Ethnographic Study of the Changing Work and Occupations of Creatives

46 Design Meets Business
are (re)negotiated not only in inter-occupational struggles but also in intra-occupational struggles.
Finally, in Chapter 4 I study how interactions with clients change as a result of collaborating with business. Shifting from the design firm Fjord to the setting of the innovation hub Waag, in this chapter I explore how creative workers help their business clients to become creative. I suggest that creative workers act as ‘ceremony masters’ and facilitate liminality for their business clients. In this study, I explore the practices that help the creative workers to create a state of in-betweenness among their business clients, as they help them move away from existing organizational realities and orient to new ones. The study does not only illuminate how liminality can be purposefully created, but also how creatives do not only put them- selves but also others at the center of creativity.
Finally, in Chapter 5, I answer the main research question. After summarizing the key findings, I discuss theoretical contributions and outline areas for future research. Besides discussing the theoretical impli- cations, I also identify the practical relevance of this study. I finish the chapter with a reflection on my methodology, in which I suggest that doing ethnography is like mastering craft. In Table 1.2, I offer the outline of this dissertation, including outlets in which my research has been peer reviewed and presented.
For purposes of clarity, in this dissertation research I use the term ‘I’ or ‘first author’ when referring to research processes that are primarily designed and executed by myself or in texts that reflect personal opinions (especially Chapter 1 & 5). These references are especially used in form example paragraphs that recite data collection, procedures of analysis and methodological reflections. I use ‘we’ or ‘the authors’ in texts that have been developed collaboratively, such as co-authored empirical chapters (Chapter 2, 3 & 4). Taken together, the following pages offer diverse stories of how the work and occupations of creatives changed as a result of colla- borating with business.