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Design Expanding into Strategy: Evidence from Design Consulting Firms

Suzan Boztepe

IT University of Copenhagen, Denmark

suzb@itu.dk

Keywords: strategic design; design consulting firms; design management

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to examine how design works at the level of strategy. Through analyses of the practices of five design consulting firms in Denmark, it explores how designers become part of strategy formation in the first place, the types of strategic work they undertake, and what design skills and knowledge they utilize in the making of strategy. The findings suggest that designers engage in strategy-level work in multiple domains ranging from redefinition of existing strategies to building unique organizational competencies to setting corporate vision by developing future scenarios. 

This paper is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International licence.

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Cite this paper: Boztepe, S. (2016). Design Expanding into Strategy: Evidence from Design Consulting Firms. Proceedings of DRS 2016, Design Research Society 50th Anniversary Conference. Brighton, UK, 27–30 June 2016.

This paper will be presented at DRS2016, find it in the conference programme


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