Building Design Capability in the Public Sector: Expanding the Horizons of Development

Abstract

Public sector organizations are in need of new approaches to development and innovation. There is a need to develop a capability to better understand priorities, needs and wishes of public sector service users and become more proactive, in order to meet the demands on keeping costs down and quality high.Design is increasingly put forward as a potential answer to this need and there are many initiatives taken across the world to encourage the use of a design approach to development and innovation within public sector. In relation to this trend there is a need to improve the understanding of how public sector organizations develop ability to exploit design; how they develop design capability. This is the focus of this thesis, which through an exploratory study has observed the two initiatives aiming to introduce design and develop design capability within healthcare and social service organizations.One main contribution of this work is an understanding of the design capability concept based on a structured review of the use of the design capability concept in the literature. The concept has previously been used in relation to different aspects of designs in organizations.Another important contribution is the development of an understanding for how design capability is developed based on interpretations founded in the organizational learning perspective of absorptive capacity. The study has identified how different antecedents to development of design capability have influenced this development in the two cases. The findings have identified aspects that both support and impede the development of design capability which are important to acknowledge and address when aiming to develop design capability within a public sector organization.In both cases, the set up of the knowledge transferring efforts focus mainly on developing awareness of design. Similar patterns are seen in other prior and parallel initiatives. The findings however suggest that it is also important to ensure that the organization have access to design competence and that structures like routines, processes and culture support and enable the use of design practice, in order to make design a natural part of the continuous development work.v Populärvetenskaplig sammanfattningSedan 2015 ställer patientlagstiftningen krav på ökat inflytande och delaktighet för patienter och socialtjänstbrukare och det pågår ett paradigmskifte mot en mer personcentrerad vård och omsorg. Detta ställer nya krav både på utveckling och leverans av tjänster inom offentlig sektor. Den ökade pressen på offentlig sektor att hålla nere kostnaderna och samtidigt hålla hög kvalité på tjänsterna skapar ett behov av nya förhållningssätt till såväl användarna av tjänster som till utveckling. Förståelsen för invånarnas behov, förutsättningar och drömmar behöver utvecklas för att ge verksamheten bättre insikt i vilka problem de knappa resurserna ska fokuseras på och att de lösningar som tas fram verkligen tillför värde.I samband med detta lyfts allt oftare design fram som ett pot...

A Model for Measuring and Managing the Impact of Design on the Organization: Insights from Four Companies

“…Organizations' capacity to use design in their development work is known as design capability [33]. Although previous research approached design capability from different perspectives, Malmberg [33] reviewed the literature to break it down into its principal component dimensions.…”

“…Organizations' capacity to use design in their development work is known as design capability [33]. Although previous research approached design capability from different perspectives, Malmberg [33] reviewed the literature to break it down into its principal component dimensions. Firstly, design resources refer to the organization's capacity to allocate human, financial, and material resources to design activities.…”

Making it fit - strategies for harbouring public sector service design

“…Integrating service design knowledge within the organizations with the purpose to forward transformation on several levels might be an alternative approach since service inherently involves the organization ant it's employees (Sangiorgi 2011; Aguirre Ulloa 2020). Intentionally increasing the organizations design capability (Aricò 2018;Malmberg 2017), being the understanding of design as a resource. Design capability consists of the organizations knowledge of design, resources to design and how the organizational structures support design knowledge (Malmberg 2017).…”

“…Intentionally increasing the organizations design capability (Aricò 2018;Malmberg 2017), being the understanding of design as a resource. Design capability consists of the organizations knowledge of design, resources to design and how the organizational structures support design knowledge (Malmberg 2017).…”

The Effect of Design Capability Characteristic on Design Performance for Bumiputera Furniture Companies

“…In this section, the design capability is related to managing the design resources and integration of design into current practice, which are closely connected with the organization management. Malmberg [16] indicate the design capability cannot be developed directly by adding the resources, but it requires the development of structures, routines or processes that enable the use of design competence and assimilation of design practice as an organizational function. This is to the support and manage the use of design resource for Bumiputera manufacturing company exploit their design more successfully.…”