Organizational identity construal through design process

Abstract

Due to rapid changes in technologies and the market, institutions are not only changing their activities, but also their physical environment. Leadership tends to lead organizations by means of its structure and activities. In this study, due to weakened cultural uniqueness after changing the physical environment, a design school was searching for ways to improve its own personality and creative activities. This research questions how an organizational identity can be enhanced through an internal design process. Case study was needed to exemplify the theory in practice and examine the design process. Participatory observation and archival studies have been used to learn how the self-managed design process can be introduced to lay design process as a consistent discourse. In this case, the Department of Product Design is challenging students, as design consultants, to cultivate the institute's creative environment and identity. Students are encouraged to involve the stakeholders and to facilitate interactions in their environment through physical items. Throughout the process of trial and error, students have challenged both their personal opinions about the space they occupy as well as those of the other inhabitants. To analyze the findings from the students design process, organizational identity (OI) theory was used. Furthermore, the article analyzes the design process in relation to OI theory in order to study how designers can use concepts of embodied knowledge as an OI construal in the problem space and solution space exploration