(A) typology of chief executives' roles in design management

Abstract

An increasing number of chief executives express a strong interest in design management as a strategic medium for facilitating a design-centered business outlook to boost continuous innovation, and ensure corporate competitiveness. Their influence on design management has expanded and their roles as the leaders of their companies have become significantly more interactive with design and designers. This research attempts to identify a typology of the roles chief executives play when they practice design management by considering the factors in their behavior which influence their effectiveness - the so-called ``influential factors`` of chief executives. By conducting a critical review of available literature, the nature and relationship of chief executives to the task of design management was explored and their influential factors on design was identified. It followed that types of the roles played by chief executives in design management could be established. It is acknowledged that the chief executive controls activities at the strategic level of design management. The chief executive`s influential factors on design management and design output consist of two personal traits - `Design awareness` (DA) and `Good sense of design` (GSD) - and two managerial activities - `Support for design` (SD) and `Involvement in design` (ID). Moreover, conceptual types of chief executives` roles can be derived from considering the combinations of the two attitudes - positive or negative - of the influential factors with the effect on design. The negative types of roles were identified and labeled as `Indifferent`, `Non-player` and `Interferer`, and the positive types as `Advisor`, `Patron`, and `Driver`. Content analysis of chief executives` letters as published in the Annual Reports of corporations with recognized brand label and highly esteemed innovation was made in order to establish the present status of the DA of these chief executives. A survey in the form of a que...