Designerly Ways of Dealing with Organizational Problems

Date

2025-9-1

Author

Kesdi, Nimet Başar

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When first introduced to the industry, design was typically interested in producing products, industrial goods, graphic items, and interior designs; however, design has recently become a widely accepted innovation tool in various fields, and design thinking is now a widely used term that corresponds to designerly approaches to problem-solving. This research focuses on organizational problem-solving and how professional industrial designers deal with organizational problems. To define and frame organizational problems, the Organizational Problem Matrix (OPM) is developed. This serves as a tool to decipher organizational problems in terms of their relatedness to organizational subsystems, the location of organizational functions, and the action of management functions. The thesis research has two phases. Phase One consists of three research stages in which 12 industrial designers were interviewed, 44 published case studies were analyzed, and 34 hours of participant observation study were conducted to generate four organizational problem narratives. Phase One also led to the exploration of familiar types of organizational problems to industrial designers and designerly ways of working in three themes: (1) creative drivers, (2) perspective integrators, (3) empathic negotiators. In Phase Two, eight in-house industrial designers and eight non-designer managers were interviewed to explore their approaches to organizational problems. Four written organizational narratives were used as probes in this phase, and the findings reveal unique tactical approaches that industrial designers can offer when dealing with organizational problems. The findings of this research are expected to support problem-solving activities in organizations and have valuable implications for design and management education and practice.

Subject Keywords

Organizational Problems, Organizational Problem Matrix, Design Thinking, Designerly Thinking, Creative Problem-Solving

URI

https://hdl.handle.net/11511/116072

Collections

Graduate School of Natural and Applied Sciences, Thesis