title: Organisations as artefacts
title: an inquiry into hidden design activities within situated organisational
      contexts
titleType: Subtitle
Creators: name: Herfurth, Lorenz
Publisher: name: Lancaster University
Year: 2016
Subjects: Silent design
hidden design activities
design actions
design studies
socially-distributed design
human-centred design
organisations as artefacts
organisation studies
temporary organisations
multi-case study
grounded research

description: The overall aim of this PhD is to provide insights into the hidden and
      socially-distributed design activities and behaviours through which
      members of an organisation contribute to its shape. How do those who are
      part of the organisational artefact contribute to the design of the
      artefact?
      
      Looking at an organisation as an artefact on the one hand acknowledges the
      human-made process that brings organisations into existence and the
      possibility that an organisation is a product of human action. On the
      other hand it raises questions with regard to the properties of this
      artefact and the design activities that lead to its existence or in␣uence
      its development. A paradox is represented by the circumstance that an
      organisation is both made by and, at the same time, “consists” of humans.
      
      A small sample qualitative multi-case study was selected as the research
      strategy. One case is a retrospective study of an architectural
      construction project for a higher education institution in the UK, the
      other is a live study of a mass participation music performance that took
      place in a major UK city. Together they combine the wealth of material
      from a longitudinal and retrospective study with the detailed insights
      obtained from live observation.
      
      Analysis is partially grounded, prioritising an understanding emerging
      from the data itself rather than applying a speci␣c concept to identify
      themes accordingly. However, fundamental understandings of design are
      applied to understand whether the design activities identi␣ed cohere with
      existing approaches or provide novel insights into hidden
      
      i
      
      design actions.
      
      In both cases the ␣ndings con␣rm the existence of hidden and
      socially-distributed design actions in processes of organisational design.
      While fundamental indicators of design change are identi␣able in selected
      events, novel characteristics add to existing understandings of design.
      Contributions this PhD makes concern the identi␣cation and description of
      hidden design activities within communities of non-expert, silent
      designers and the empirically supported speci␣cation of organisations as
      socially-designed artefacts. Speci␣cally, the ␣ndings lead to the
      articulation of three contributions: design-before- design, an approach
      that promotes the acknowledgement of unique organisational settings before
      design interventions, socially-distributed design as an empirically
      supported extension of silent design and the resulting description of case
      studies as self-referential artefacts.