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Design making its way to the city hall : tensions in design capacity building in the public sector

Boztepe, Suzan LU ; Linde, Per and Smedberg, Alicia (2023)
Abstract
Public sector organizations have been increasingly turning to design in their pursuit to innovate and address pressing challenges that seem intractable through their existing ways of working. Design’s presence in the public sector is still a relatively recent phenomenon ridden with many challenges. Through a study of three municipalities in Sweden, we present tensions designers face as they work their way to build design capacity. We argue that making a place for design in organizational systems and their ways of working requires skillfully navigating these tensions. We describe each tension in terms of their contradictions embedded in dualities and discuss designers’ ways of managing them. Practical applications for design and public... (More)
Public sector organizations have been increasingly turning to design in their pursuit to innovate and address pressing challenges that seem intractable through their existing ways of working. Design’s presence in the public sector is still a relatively recent phenomenon ridden with many challenges. Through a study of three municipalities in Sweden, we present tensions designers face as they work their way to build design capacity. We argue that making a place for design in organizational systems and their ways of working requires skillfully navigating these tensions. We describe each tension in terms of their contradictions embedded in dualities and discuss designers’ ways of managing them. Practical applications for design and public administration are also discussed. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
author
; and
publishing date
type
Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding
publication status
published
subject
host publication
Proceedings of the 2023 International Association of Societies of Design Research (IASDR) Congress
pages
15 pages
publisher
Design Research Society
DOI
10.21606/iasdr.2023.458
language
English
LU publication?
no
id
d4edd5d0-60a9-474a-8f74-cf8e868efe68
date added to LUP
2026-07-01 16:39:51
date last changed
2026-08-19 16:11:37
@inproceedings{d4edd5d0-60a9-474a-8f74-cf8e868efe68,
  abstract     = {{Public sector organizations have been increasingly turning to design in their pursuit to innovate and address pressing challenges that seem intractable through their existing ways of working. Design’s presence in the public sector is still a relatively recent phenomenon ridden with many challenges. Through a study of three municipalities in Sweden, we present tensions designers face as they work their way to build design capacity. We argue that making a place for design in organizational systems and their ways of working requires skillfully navigating these tensions. We describe each tension in terms of their contradictions embedded in dualities and discuss designers’ ways of managing them. Practical applications for design and public administration are also discussed.}},
  author       = {{Boztepe, Suzan and Linde, Per and Smedberg, Alicia}},
  booktitle    = {{Proceedings of the 2023 International Association of Societies of Design Research (IASDR) Congress}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  publisher    = {{Design Research Society}},
  title        = {{Design making its way to the city hall : tensions in design capacity building in the public sector}},
  url          = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.21606/iasdr.2023.458}},
  doi          = {{10.21606/iasdr.2023.458}},
  year         = {{2023}},
}