This article explores how engagement with tangible design artefacts can invite, and sustain focus on, the different professional perspectives that emerge in multistakeholder workshops. Multiple interests and intentions can pose challenges, especially in the initial phases of collaborative work. Existing design research emphasises the use of tangible artefacts as mediators for collaboration, but limited attention has been given to how they could be used to expose tensions and opposing perspectives as a way to enable movement beyond stuck conversation among stakeholders. We examine the design and use of two tangible artefacts for multi-stakeholder collaborative inquiry, demonstrating how interaction with them can encourage open and active confrontation of underlying and contradictory stakeholder interests and intentions. Since unspoken conflicts can undermine the early stages of collaborative inquiry, we propose that the use of tangible artefacts to explore taken-for-granted assumptions is crucial if stakeholders are to negotiate perspectives and co-create new meaning.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to present researcher's reflexive writing about emergent events in research collaborations as a way of responding to the process-figurational sociology of Norbert Elias in the practice of organizational ethnography.Design/methodology/approachDrawing parallels between Norbert Elias' figurative account of social life and auto-ethnographic methodology, this paper re-articulates the entanglement of social researchers in organizational ethnographic work. Auto-ethnographic narration is explored as means to inquire from within the emerging relational complexity constituted by organizational dynamics. Writing about emergent events in the research process becomes a way of inquiring into the social figurations between the involved stakeholders; thus nurturing sense-making and increasing the awareness and sensitivity of the researcher to her own entanglement with the relational complexity of the organization under study.FindingsIn the paper, we argue that the writing of auto-ethnographic narratives of emergent field encounters is a process of inquiry that continuously depicts the temporal development of the relational complexity in organizations. Viewing that from the perspective of Elias' concept of figuration, we find a common commitment to the processual nature of research processes, which insists on moving beyond objectifying empirical insights.Originality/valueThis paper encourages awareness of the interdependency between ourselves as social researchers and field actors as we engage with the field. It moves beyond simplifying the ethnographic research agenda to that of “studying” and “describing” organizations. It offers unique insights into the organizational context, and increased sensitivity toward the social entanglement of the experiences that we, ourselves, as researchers are part of.

This research aims to re-articulate the concept of participation in design research by adopting a relational, temporal and process-oriented perspective. In the paper we draw on recent theory where human interaction is understood as complex responsive processes of relating. Thus, participation is seen as people taking part in creating social objects that emerge in the complex social processes of everyday organisational life. This perspective challenges conceptions of participation as normative as well as the tendency to make methods of participation generalizable and replicable. Based on an organisational case in which multiple stakeholders are involved in collaborative design processes, we describe how social dynamics and issues of power, enable and constrain participation and argue that participation cannot, strictly, be accounted for on the foundation of designed temporary workshop spaces, methods and tools for engagement or the facilitation of the researcher or designer. On that basis, we will introduce a concept which argues that participation is how people engage the temporal emergence of daily interactions and on-going conversations that unfold in complex processes of relating, influencing action, interaction, identity and meaning. Keywords: Participation; complex responsive processes of relating; co-design; infrastructuring; participatory design; interdependency and researchers often take assumptions of the idea of participation for granted (Winschiers-Theophilus 2012; Saad-Sulonen et al. 2018) leaving much room for individual interpretation, as few contributions articulate what participation actually might mean. This calls for a more thorough reflection on current understanding of participation, the challenges and opportunities these engender, and possible directions for the future.Our paper sets out to reflect on and re-articulate the complexity of participation in design research practice. We will argue for an understanding of participation as the on-going interaction between those involved in emergent processes of relating. Although this perspective might seem straight-forward, it challenges normative and pre-defined understandings of participation. Our perspective originates from more recent organisational research in which human interaction is articulated as complex responsive processes of relating (Stacey et al. 2000). This theory focuses on the temporal emergence of social dynamics, including power relations. We draw parallels to the current discussions in some strands of design research, such as participatory design (PD) and infrastructuring, focusing on how we can understand the nature of participation, when taking into account the non-linear, fluctuating and spontaneous character of human interaction.

This paper presents a design anthropological study with User Experience design departments from five large companies in Denmark, ranging from manufacturers of medical equipment through toys to control systems for industrial infrastructures We explore the challenges they face as products, services, and user research are increasingly connected. Our research shows that current methods, development processes, and organizational structures do not sufficiently support User Experience design teams in dealing with emerging design and organizational challenges that follow from increased digitalization. As a result, UX designers are struggling to anticipate the future of product interaction, user data, and their organizational role. In this paper, we explore how playing with theoretical concepts and introducing a new vocabulary may facilitate fundamental shifts in perspective necessary to instigate change. We deploy ‘theory cards’ in an experiment with one of the companies to see if theories might serve as instruments for seeing field material and design problems in ways more supportive for future design endeavours.

Building on participatory innovation, and taking a personal and analytical autoethnographic approach we set out to investigate how innovative initiatives emerge in the interaction