Industrial Designers as Boundary Workers

The research described in this chapter focuses on industrial designers and their creative work, which typically occurs in several firm interfaces and may unfold as strategic boundary work creating new or renewed value for firms. Grounded in a multiple-case study from export-oriented Scandinavian businesses, I delineate what constitutes design-rich boundary work and its underlying dynamics. While the setting for this study was industrial design-business relations, it may contribute to illuminating boundary work more generally as an important aspect of the innovation process. On the one hand, this concerns the opportunity to strengthen the organization’s core values and mission through focused innovation, thus avoiding going in undesired and perhaps too risky directions. On the other hand, boundary workers such as talented designers may be capable of a constructive reconfiguration of the organization’s offerings thus creating new points of departure for the organization. It is noteworthy that the designers in these cases started as newcomers from the threshold or “liminal” positions, and yet, were able to co-create new and better product architecture in integral, collaborative ways with the firm and their target groups.