Industrial Design as a Strategic Resource A Study of Industrial Design Methods and Approaches for Companies' Strategic Development

Abstract

In order to understand how design can become a strategic resource it is necessary to understand how design management is related to other management philosophies. This article aims to understand the reasoning of strategic management and analyse the design management literature and the arguments for why design contributes to strategic development. From being a linear process strategic management has developed into an organizational learning process based on dialogues. Is this development considered by theories concerning design management? Not to its full potential. The literature studies show that design management could be related to the recent management literature in which integrationis a key word. Design as a strategic resourceis based on three integration processes. These are conceptual, functional and visual integration. The empirical studies show that at companies in which all three integration processes have taken place there has also been a great deal of organizational learning. Thereis potential to relate the organizational learning perspective of strategic management also to developing a design management concept.