A Multimodal Investigation of the Institutionalization of Aesthetic Design as a Dimension of Competition in the PC Industry (original) (raw)
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Research in the Sociology of Organizations, 2018
The paper applies a multimodal approach to position aesthetic innovation, i.e. the strategic use of aesthetic design attributes such as color and shape, as an institutionalized aspect of competition, rather than as a firm-specific differentiation strategy, in settings that favor the symbolic meanings of products. Empirically, the paper offers a detailed case study of the Personal Computer (PC) industry to examine the institutionalization of aesthetic innovation as a dimension of competition across industry firms. The paper examines the color and shape of PCs over the 1992-2003 period and situates changes to these attributes in the competitive conditions that characterized the industry, paying particular attention to the introduction of the Apple iMac in 1998. Furthermore, it examines the discursive manifestations of aesthetic innovation by content analyzing reviews of PCs and interviews with industry executives. Findings demonstrate that, in a period coinciding with a decline in demand for PCs and an overall mature market as well as with the introduction of the iMac, the majority of firms engaged in aesthetic innovation and used a greater number of aesthetic words in describing their PCs.
A rising tide lifts all boats: The origins of institutionalized aesthetic innovation
This paper highlights that the strategic use of design, a competitive pattern typically associated with creative industries, those creating and trading meanings, also characterizes industries that produce functional or utilitarian goods not typically considered creative. The paper explores the origins of this phenomenon in the context of three industry settings: cars, specialty coffee, and personal computers. The analysis theorizes three distinct strategic paths that explain how design may become an institutionalized aspect of competition in industries that are not creative. We explain how firms link their products to the identities of their users, how design is linked to stakeholders’ emotions and visceral reactions to products, and how intermediaries are relevant to enhancing attention to design. Illuminating these strategic paths allows harnessing some of the well-established understandings about competition in creative industries toward understanding competition in non-creative industries.
Understanding Aesthetic Innovation in the Context of Technological Evolution
Academy of Management Review, 2013
I theorize the coevolution of technology and design by integrating research on the evolution of technology with ideas from sociology, marketing, and psychology that explain the effects of design. Specifically, I apply work arguing that visible design attributes, such as color, shape, or texture, allow producers to explain what their products do and how best to use them, to excite users in a way that generates sales, and to extend the basic functionalities of their products by highlighting their symbolic meanings. I then theorize that the relevance of these three uses varies in the context of technological evolution such that affecting products' design-related attributes is a more central organizational process as product technologies emerge and when they are very mature, suggesting a U-shaped relationship between technological evolution and design. I also elaborate the moderators of this relationship: the frequency of successive product introductions, the social dynamics affecting consumption, the users' level of technological knowledge, and the volume of discourse attending to design. Thus, the article offers a holistic theory for understanding the strategic use of design in the context of technological production and, as such, advances recent work positioning design as a primary strategic challenge.
Understanding Aesthetic Design in the Context of Technological Evolution
Academy of Management Review, 2013
The paper theorizes the co-evolution of technology and design by integrating research on the evolution of technology with ideas from sociology, marketing, and psychology that explain the effects of design. Specifically, it applies work arguing that visible design attributes, such as color, shape, or texture allow producers to explain what their products do and how best to use them, to excite users in a way that generates sales, and to extend the basic functionalities of their products by highlighting their symbolic meanings. It then theorizes that the relevance of these three uses varies in the context of technological evolution such that affecting products’ design-related attributes is a more central organizational process as product technologies emerge and when they are very mature, suggesting a U-shaped relationship between technological evolution and design. Next, the paper elaborates the moderators of this relationship: the frequency of successive product introductions, the social dynamics affecting consumption, the users’ level of technological knowledge, and the volume of discourse attending to design. Thus, the paper offers a holistic theory for understanding the strategic use of design in the context of technological production and as such, advances recent work positioning design as a primary strategic challenge.
Oil in water? Explaining differences in aesthetic design emphasis in new technology-based firms
Technovation, 2008
The purpose of this research is to investigate how differences in aesthetic design emphasis among new technology-based firms (NTBFs) can be explained. Four hypotheses are developed based on a synthesis of existing research in the fields of design, strategy and entrepreneurship. The hypotheses are tested based on a survey of 103 NTBFs. The results of the research indicate that aesthetic design emphasis is significantly related with the importance of aesthetic design in a firm's chosen sector, which can be classified as a positioning factor. Aesthetic design emphasis is also significantly related with founder characteristics, which are resources factors, namely founders' technical education and founders' experience of sales and marketing, respectively. The results of the research lend some support to the anecdotal notion that engineers do not appreciate the value of aesthetic design and suggest that the source of this lack of appreciation is their education.
Design Innovation Typologies. A critical Analysis of a Complex Relationship
2019
In the literature, many types of product innovation are described. In this article, we analyze the three design-related innovation typologies that seem most discussed and agreed upon: i) aesthetic innovation; ii) innovation of use; iii) meaning innovation. While allowing overlaps and complementarities, each typology focuses on a specific aspect of a product’s innovation. Over time, such specificities prevented the formulation of an integrated theoretical model able to connect them together and express logical and functional relations among them. In this article – through a systematic analysis of the literature of the last 30 years – we aim to identify a theoretical model that underlines the specific drivers of any innovation typology, at the same time composing them in a coherent framework in which some are considered logical and instrumental antecedents with respect to higher level of innovation.
Aesthetic Flexibility : In Industrial Design Practice
Linköping Studies in Science and Technology. Dissertations, 2021
Competition among companies that produce complex or large product portfolios has created a need to use modularity strategies not only to flexibly manage technical complexity in a cost-e ective manner but also to produce visually appealing products. This research aims to understand how the visual appearance of products is a ected by modular product development strategies and creates coherent product brands. Thus, this study examines the intersection of strategic design (e.g., industrial design), product portfolio management, product brand management, and decision making in design. Specifically, this study aims to understand how such strategies constrain and generate possibilities when the industrial design process concerns itself with visual appearance. The main research approach has been qualitative multi-case methodology (Miles et al, 2014; Eisenhardt, 1989) and design theory building (Chakrabarti and Blessing, 2016) that collects data through interviews, experimentation, and theoretical studies based on findings in the literature. Sixteen face-to-face interviews were conducted with design vice presidents, senior designers, and senior design engineers at five Swedish manufacturers from the automotive, medtech, consumer goods, commercial vehicles, and materials handling industries. This approach has resulted in the description of three theoretical models and a design method, product gist, for investigating prototypicality in a product category. Aesthetic flexibility reflects the requirement that under certain circumstances an industrial designer has to plan for future (as yet unknown) changes in a design. Each of the three theoretical models has a di erent focus: one model describes three ways manufacturing companies organise a strategic in-house design function; one model describes how design decisions are made on a general level through an intuitive and knowledge-based judgment process; and one model describes the strategies a manager needs to consider when developing an existing product portfolio and how the strategies influence industrial design practice. Understanding visual flexibility serves as a starting point for further investigations of how development strategies a ect visual product design. This understanding provides industrial designers insight into how they can develop product systems that share design components across product lines to promote brand identity. The findings of this work illustrate and explain a complex and multi-facetted design phenomenon that many designers manage more or less intuitively today; therefore, this study advances the understanding of the field for academics, teachers, and professional designers.
Designers as the Determinants of Aesthetic Innovations
2015
Aesthetic innovations have become increasingly important appropriation mechanisms for firms. Since 2003, the number of design patent applications (to protect aesthetic innovations) has tripled compared to doubling in the numbers of both patent and trademark applications. However, despite the growing interest of firms in aesthetic innovations, knowledge on their determinants is limited. Work on labor mobility within the innovation studies literature focuses mainly on discussion of scientists as crucial for creating technological innovations. This paper adds to work on labor mobility and innovation by examining whether this holds in the case of designers' mobility and aesthetic innovations. Does the hiring of a new designer generate more aesthetic innovations than in a matched firm, which does not hire a designer? What is the importance of prior experience with aesthetic innovation in the receiving firm for the firm's absorptive capacity linked to translating the hiring of a d...