DESIGNERS DANCING WITH(IN) THE ORGANIZATIONAL HIERARCHY - THE IMPORTANCE OF NON-HIERARCHICAL POWER TO DESIGN

This paper relates the theoretical perspectives of Mary Parker Follett (1868-1933) to contemporary views of industrial designers. It (1) presents Follett’s non-hierarchical view of power and relations within organizations, (2) discusses a Follettian perspective on relationships between designers and other members of the organization, proposing that one of the reasons for current views of design within the organizational reality may be difficulties of doing creative work within a hierarchical organization, and (3) reports findings from interviews with several respected industrial designers in Sweden and the U.S. The interviews are themathized to highlight common perspectives and views on non-hierarchical power relationships.

Follett, writing in the 1920s, elaborated on an organizational view of power where people were “not above each other” and did not execute “power over” but “power with” and according to the situation. She also had a notion of every employee bringing their “citizenship” into the company and the company being part of a holistic society. Though many scholars, for example Peter Drucker and Rosabeth Moss Kanter, say they have much in common with her ideas, Follett has not become a founding mother of organisation theory, rather being more or less forgotten for several decades.  During the last decade, scholars have come to discuss her ideas again, attributing her as having foundational ideas in areas such as empowerment, chaos theory, life long learning, stakeholder theory and organizational justice.

We discuss how Follett can contribute to a better understanding of the subtle relationship between designers and various organizational members. Many researchers have discussed the problems of these relationships and specifically mentioning those with top management. Here we suggest that what is needed is not necessarily good relations with top management but rather the acceptance of non-hierarchical relations within the organisation.

In order to explore these reflections empirically we have interviewed leading representatives of the industrial design community in Sweden and the U.S. The result of these interviews will be presented in the full paper.