Understanding Structures of Collaborative Design Innovation (CDI) Management Practices: a Strategic Brand Alignment Approach

ART 5 (1) pp. 2.1–2.21 Intellect Limited 2018

Nicky Nedergaard Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, School of Design

Understanding structures of Collaborative Design Innovation (CDI) management practices: A strategic brand alignment approach

Abstract Keywords This article sets out to explain structures of design management practices around the design management implementation of product innovation strategies that rely on collaborations with exter- practices nal design consultants, what this article refers to as Collaborative Design Innovation collaborative (CDI) strategies. Whilst design management practices for implementing collaborative innovation approaches to product design innovation have been widely described in design and brand management innovation management literatures, we still know very little about the organizational brand logics mechanisms affecting such structures and configurations of design management product design practices. This study aims to build theoretical explanations as to how we may under- semantics stand structures of enacted CDI management practices, which is approached through design analyses of how firms strive to strategically align design management practices and complementarities (corporate) brand management. First, the article presents a theoretical framework for

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analysing such strategic alignment by elaborating relational perspectives on different strategic approaches to brand management – conceptualized as ‘brand logics’ – and CDI management practices. Second, this framework is then applied to a multiple case study of six Danish small- and medium-sized enterprises operating in the Danish interior design industry. Through within- and cross-case grounded analyses empirical findings reveal relational patterns between two brand logics and two dominant structures of design management practices. As the main contribution of the article, findings suggest that observed differences in enacted structures of CDI management practices across case-companies may be explained on the basis of understanding firm dominant brand logics. Implications for design management theory and practice conclude the article.

1. Introduction A growing body of research suggests the integration of design innovation and brand management as a strategic firm capability for building and sustaining competitive advantage (Abbing and van Gessel 2008; Beverland et al. 2010, 2015; Botschen and Wegerer 2017; Brexendorf et al. 2015; Calder and Calder 2010; Kapferer 2014; Karjalainen and Snelders 2010; Nedergaard and Gyrd- Jones 2013; Townsend et al. 2013). This strategic view on brand–design innovation alignment remains strongly rooted in the notion that these distinct management domains essentially share the same core business purpose of differentiating organizations (and products) in the marketplace (Johansson and Svengren-Holm 2006; Montaña et al. 2007). In continuation hereof, extant design management research broadly advocates firm idiosyncratic and well-developed design competencies for building and sustaining strongly differentiated brands (Beverland 2005; Borja de Mozota 1998, 2003). Particularly pertaining to small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) the employment of in-house designers may often pose a too heavy fixed cost on the operating budget, making the deployment of external design resources a more viable way for accessing and strengthening firm design competencies (e.g. von Stamm 1998). However, despite the broad acceptance across the design and brand literatures that product designs may constitute powerful touchpoints for managing and conveying distinctively new brand meanings for competitive differentiation (e.g. Kapferer 2012, 2014), we still know very little about how different approaches to managing (corporate) brands relate to design management practices of deploying external design(er) resources. As the article’s main contribution, the present study aims to provide empirical insights capable of explaining structures of enacted design management practices in the context of implementing product innovation strategies that rely on collaborations with external (designer) resources – what this article henceforth refers to as Collaborative Design Innovation (CDI) strategies. This research agenda is approached by analysing how different brand (management) logics – conceptualized later as different ways of approaching the management of brand meaning and accordingly aligning business processes and practices – affect structures of enacted CDI management practices across multiple Danish SMEs operating in design-intensive industries. With this approach, the study furthermore strives to generate novel theoretical insights of relevance to the much-overlooked issue of explaining differences across firms in enacted structures of CDI management practices. The following section provides a brief literature review of interre- lated research concerned with the management of CDI strategies, which

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motivates the following elaboration of a theoretical framework for examining brand–design innovation management alignment. Serving the main purpose of guiding the study’s empirical inquiries and analysis, the following framework mainly draws from research on managing design alliances (e.g. Bruce and Jevnaker 1998 – a classic anthology representing some of the most elaborate work in the field of design alliances) and design-driven innovation (of meanings) (e.g. Verganti 2009, 2017), which are complemented by relevant perspectives from literatures on (brand) co-creation (Gyrd-Jones and Kornum 2013; Prahalad and Ramaswamy 2004), product design semantics (Karjalainen and Snelders 2010; Krippendorff 1989) and strategic (corporate) brand management (Kapferer, 2012; Urde 1999, 2013).

2. Relational perspectives on strategic design–brand management alignment Design management research has paid considerable attention to management practices for implementing CDI strategies, that is, innovation strategies that broadly rely on collaborations with external stakeholders (e.g. design consultants) as key resources for driving firm design innovation. For instance, a considerable amount of work in the late 1990s focused on practices for successfully engaging in strategies of ‘design alliances’ (Bruce et al. 1999; Bruce and Jevnaker 1998; von Stamm 1998) defined as ‘[…] a collaborative and interactive business relationship between a company and its design resource’ (Jevnaker 1998: 1). Broadly acknowledged in the design alliances literature, such collaborative approaches to the use of external design resources may – if properly organized – facilitate the realization of (product) innovations that diverge from existing offerings and thus complement the typical use of in-house designers for conver- gent design tasks (see, e.g., Bruce and Morris 1998, for the innovation benefits of deploying external versus in-house design consultants). This design alliances literature shares many similarities with the later conceptualization of the (technology-oriented) open innovation framework (Chesbrough 2006), which essentially theorizes (radical) innovation as rooted in management practices of combining firm endogenous and exogenous resources. In much the same vein, as prescribed within the open innovation paradigm, a new stream of collaborative innovation research has caught on since the early 2000s focusing on innovation through design(ers) (Verganti 2003, 2006) – later popularized under the banner of design-driven innovation (Verganti 2009). In line with the preceding ‘design alliances’ literature, a growing interest in design-driven innovation suggests collaborative practices of exploring and exploiting exogenous (design) resources as key to firm capabilities for challenging industry standards (Dell’Era and Verganti 2010). In broad terms, whether drawing on firm demand-side stakeholders such as (lead) users (e.g. von Hippel 1986, 2005) or supply-side professionals from communities of design practice (cf. the empirical focus of this study), such exogenous (design) resources are theorized to enrich firms with fresh inputs and knowledge into new sociocultural trends and burgeon- ing changes, which may propel firms’ creative processes towards designs that stand out from competitors in the marketplace (Millward et al. 2006; Ravasi and Stigliani 2011; von Stamm 1998; Verganti 2009; Yair et al. 2001). However, in contrast to the open technology-driven innovation research, Verganti and colleagues’ major contribution to the CDI literatures lies in focusing our attention to (design-driven) innovation of meanings (e.g. Verganti 2009), which may be achieved through pushing truly new design languages onto the market.

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Motivating the present study, the above-discussed bodies of research focused on collaborative approaches to design innovation has spurred a renewed interest in the management practices of locating, attracting and sustaining innovative and ‘designerly’ knowledge and skills beyond firm boundaries in specialized networks of (design) practices (Altuna et al. 2017; Dell’Era and Verganti 2010). However, a closer inspection of these works shows a predominantly descriptive research approach to examining practices that support implementation of ‘design alliances’ or ‘design-driven’ innovation strategies. Furthermore, the abundant descriptions of practices for successfully engaging in such CDI strategies come across as highly normative. For instance, Ravasi and Stigliani (2011: 235) report on the prevalent ‘worst practice’ of providing external designers with ambiguous design briefs, which by example leaves reflective discussions on whether such ambiguity may in fact serve as a context- specific ‘best practice’ largely unaddressed. These dominantly descriptive and normative approaches fail to provide analytical insights into the organizational mechanisms that affect firms’ configurations of design management practices, and differences in such practices across firms, in the context of implementing CDI strategies. Striving to open up this ‘black-box’ this article explores the arguably much-neglected theoretical explanations as to why firms configure their design management practices as we may empirically observe. Exploring such theoretical explanations may arguably hold great value to design management theory in terms of deepening our context-dependent understanding of design management practices and provide insights of use to design executives striving to become more critically reflective practitioners (cf. Schön 1984).

2.1 Understanding design management practice through the lens of brand (meaning) management Professional design competencies are widely accepted in design management literature as key organizational resources for superior product design innovations (e.g. Bruce and Jevnaker 1998; Ulrich and Eppinger 2004). In turn, such superior design innovations are increasingly viewed as key touchpoints for differentiating brands ‘behind’ the (product) designs for competitive advantage (Abbing and van Gessel 2008; Kapferer 2012, 2014; Svengren Holm 2011). Understanding how firms may achieve such beneficial synergies between the organizational functions of design and brand management some work has explicitly examined ‘design–brand management’ alignment by adopting a semantic approach to design (Krippendorff 1989) as a key theoretical foundation for analysing design outcomes in support of brand strategies. In the present study, this semantic approach is used to analyse how firms approach the alignment of design and brand management by emphasizing the role that product design languages (and functionalities) play in shaping, reinforcing or linking intangible meanings to brands (Bloch 1995; Karjalainen and Snelders 2010; Kreuzbauer and Malter 2005; Stompff 2003; Verganti 2009, 2017). Although not the central theme of investigation with the present study, an underlying assumption within this semantic approach to design is that the decoding process and brand meaning formation, as it takes place with individual stakeholders of a brand, is socially constructed. For example, the meaning of a brand is formed through interactions amongst external customer and non-customer stakeholders in brand communities (Muniz and O’Guinn 2001), amongst stakeholders within organizations (e.g. von Wallpach and

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Woodside 2009) and, not least, amongst organizations and external stakeholders in a blend of ‘off-line’ and ‘on-line’ interactions (see, Gyrd-Jones and Kornum 2013; Mäläskä et al. 2011). While not explicitly referring to semantic theory, Urde notes that implications to (corporate) brand management in terms of managing for the desired meanings to take shape with stakeholders are to clearly define a core brand meaning and then strive to express this meaning verbally and through tangible manifestations (e.g. logos) in ways that hopefully initiate a desira- ble decoding process with all stakeholders (2013: 751). Notably, this implies for design management that through the developments and refinements of design languages (understood here as specific combinations of shapes, elements, patterns, materials, colours, performances and historical design references), products attain a specific design identity. Such identities may semantically converge with (Karjalainen and Snelders 2010; Schoormans et al. 2010) or diverge from existing meanings of brands and their respective product categories (Verganti 2009). The particular design identities that a brand chooses to market thus become key touchpoints in shaping the brand meaning that both internal and external stakeholders cognitively come to associate with the brand (Borja de Mozota 2003; Keller 1993). According to Beverland et al. (2010) this line of thought implies that brand management objectives should play a strategic guiding role in terms of configuring and structuring firm innovation efforts, which is attended to in the following subsections.

2.2 Brand logics as guiding platforms for CDI management practices Although still in its infancy, some research has looked at how brands play an organizational role in relation to design innovation. One such study by Nedergaard and Gyrd-Jones examines the organizing role of corporate brand identity in relation to new product development processes and management decision-making, arguing ‘[…] that innovation needs the guidance and direction of the very same brand whose long-term equity it strives to build’ (2013: 763). However, as further noted, empirical research concerned with understanding how strategic brand management approaches guide, and thus may explain, configurations of practices for implementing collaborative innovation strategies (which rely on external human resources) remains largely neglected in both design and brand management research (Nedergaard and Gyrd-Jones 2013: 777). However, while absent in design and innovation literature, the notion of brands as guiding platforms for managers has long been promoted in the brand (orientation) management literature (e.g. Urde 1999). This literature suggests that for firms to compete on brands for competitive advantage, organizations need to connect mentally with the core promise and values of the brand (cf. the notion of symbolic interactionism as coined by Blumer 1969), and accordingly align the structuring of firm processes, practices and decision-making in support of these brand meanings. This strategic view on the symbolic dimensions of brands has also been discussed in the (graphic) design management literature as essential for providing designers with directions for materializing brand values (Olins 1989; Stompff 2008). However, returning to the semantic approach to design-brand alignment, Krippendorff reminds us that design(ing) may be viewed as ‘[…] making sense (of things)’ (1989: 9), which points to a key paradoxical tension in the context of design– brand management alignment. This paradox lies in the tension of striving to develop and market new and surprising design identities for the purpose

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of sustaining brand relevance while having design identities make sense to target audiences through design identity consistency that enables ease of brand recognition (Beverland et al. 2015). This relevance–consistency tension implies that managers are faced with two ideal-type approaches for managing brand meaning through design, which comes down to the balancing act between either exploiting existing brand meanings through consistency or exploring new meanings to keep the brand exciting, fresh and relevant: ‘A clear sense of identity is necessary, for the brand meaning to be reinforced by repetition. On the other hand market fragmentation, competitive dynamism and the need for surprises call not for reinforcement but for diversification’ (Kapferer 2012: 243). Applying the theoretical view on brands as capable of guiding the emerge of structures of management practices, this framework adopts the analytical concept of management logics originally defined by Prahalad and Bettis as ‘[…] the way in which managers conceptualise the business and make critical resource allocations decisions’ (1986: 490). This analytical lens is used to conceptualize two contradicting, yet complementary, ideal-type brand (management) logics on the basis of the tension between brand consistency and brand relevancy, each representing a distinct ‘conceptualization’ of how to compete and profit from brand meaning with theoretical implications for design management as listed below:

1. The logic of brand consistency – implies managing for consistency in brand meaning through convergence across the brand’s portfolio of product design identities. 2. The logic of brand relevance – implies managing for relevance of brand meaning in the marketplace through divergence across the brand’s portfolio of product design identities.

2.3 Management practices for implementing CDI strategies: Design complementarities To study how this framework’s conceptualization of brand logics (consistency/relevance) may help explain structures of design management practices for implementing CDI strategies, insights on practices from the literature on design alliances (cf. Bruce and Jevnaker 1998) and collaborative innovation of meanings (cf. Verganti 2009) are now considered. These insights are complemented with views on management practices from research concerned with management (brand) co-creation (Gyrd-Jones and Kornum 2013; Hatch and Schultz 2010). Practices often highlighted for successfully managing the implementation of CDI strategies include (Bruce and Morris 1998; Bruce et al. 1999; Verganti 2009) the following:

• Sourcing (search for and selection of stakeholders) • Pre-project communication and briefing of stakeholders (on firm design vision and objectives) • Immersion in stakeholder communities • Concept design (prototype) evaluation • Nurturing of long-term stakeholder relationships • Alignment of design management practices with other specific business needs

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However, pertaining to latter best-practice imperative of alignment, extant research provides little help besides emphasizing, on a very abstract level, that to fully harvest the strategic benefits of external design resources, firms should ensure that collaborative innovation projects take place in appropriate ways, and with appropriate external stakeholders vis-à-vis firm-specific business objectives (Jevnaker and Bruce 1998: 25). Although frequently mentioned in the literatures on both ‘design alliances’ and ‘collaborative innovation’, the very issue of how to strategically approach the practice of sourcing appropriate stakeholders remains underdeveloped. Despite the strong agreement on the competitive benefits to be realized through effective design–brand management alignment, the CDI management literatures discussed in this framework largely refrain from dealing with this issue from a brand management perspective. In developing this perspective as a contribution to the streams of (design innovation) management research focused on implementing CDI strategies, the following section draws on valuable perspectives from the co-creation literature.

2.4 Co-creation of brand meaning: Design complementarities Sharing many similarities with the CDI literatures discussed in the above, the original conceptualization of management co-creation by Prahalad and Ramaswamy (2004) envisages collaborative practices between the focal firm and external stakeholders as a business strategy for driving superior innovation through careful attention to fundamental practices of:

• Engaging in stakeholder dialogues • Providing access to the firm • Operating with transparency • Assessing for risks that may threaten the collaborative outputs and stakeholder relationships

While firm–stakeholder dialogue broadly aligns to prescribed CDI management practices of engaging in sourcing, selection and briefing of external designers, research into what this article bundles under the term ‘collaborative openness’ (i.e. providing access and transparency) has mostly been limited to practices of providing clear design briefs and engaging in on-going stakeholder dialogues during design processes. Such practices of collaborative openness are attended to in the present study with a view to the neglected issue of assessing for the potential risks that collaborative openness may pose in terms of managing for desired design outputs vis-à-vis firm brand logics. On the verge of entering the present decade the concept of co-creation was extended from its origins in the (user- or consumer-driven) innovation perspective into the domain of (corporate) brand management (Hatch and Schultz 2010; Merz et al. 2009), which implied a shift from a classical firm- centric approach to brand management (e.g. Aaker 1996) towards a new paradigm viewing brands as co-created with firm stakeholders (Fueller and von Hippel 2008; Merz et al. 2009). In line with the design alliances literature, brand co-creation research stresses the importance of making an effort to identify and assess which external stakeholders may contribute to achieving firm-specific brand objectives (see, e.g., Jones 2005). Of particular usefulness to advance CDI research into how management practices may be approached from a strategic brand alignment perspective, Gyrd-Jones and Kornum (2013) investi- gated organizational antecedents and consequences of brand co-creation and

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Figure 1: Enhancing, orthogonal and antagonistic design complementarities. © Nicky Nedergaard.

found that successful collaborative innovation projects may be achieved by focusing on value and cultural complementarities. Thus, as a fundamental basis for strengthening the potential success of strategically aligning CDI practices and brand objectives, the practice of assessing for brand–stakeholder value and cultural distances is suggested (Gyrd-Jones and Kornum 2013). For the purpose of this study, external designers’ cultural and value complementarities are referred to as design complementarities to reflect approaches to design in terms of stylistic design (identity) principles and values compared with the (client) brand’s existing portfolio of design identities. To assess for such design complementarities, this study adopts Gyrd-Jones and Kornum’s (2013: 1486) divide of complementarities into the three categories of enhancing, orthogonal and antagonistic complementarities. Figure 1 illustrates these analytical categories of design complementarities on the basis of strong, moderate and absent overlap in design principles and values between external design consultants and the focal client brand.

3. Methodology A multiple qualitative case study approach was chosen as appropriate to the theory-building objective of the study (Yin 2009). Six Scandinavian design- led case companies, SMEs, were included in the study. Following the strategy of theoretical and purposive sampling (Eisenhardt 1989), all case companies were chosen based on their publicly espoused strategies of managing product design innovation through collaborations with external designers. Table 1

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Cases Product categories Business size Age (years) Data sources

Retro-Kool Interior design/ Small 10+ Interview with Design Kitchens (<50 employees) Executive, corporate website, brochures, business press. Pure-Lines Household objects Small 50+ Interview with Design Executive, corporate website, design brief, marketing material, brochures, tour of facilities, Cool-Living Furniture and light- Small 10+ Interview with Design ning Executive, corporate website, brochures, case publication. Clear-Shine Lightning Medium 10+ Interview with CEO/Design (<250 employees) Executive, corporate website, brochures, business press, tour of facilities. High-Fly Furniture and light- Medium 100+ Interview with Design ning Executive, brand book, brochures, corporate website, social media, tour of facilities. Wood-Tex Furniture Medium 100+ Interview with CEO/Design Executive, brand book, corporate website, social media, tour of facilities.

Table 1: Overview of cases and data collection.

provides an overview of the six cases and data sources. Pseudonyms are used for the sake of anonymity. This case sampling approach, focused on ‘design-experienced’ SMEs, allowed for collecting valid data on how design management executives approach the structuring of CDI practices for design–brand management integration by analysing case-specific dominant brand logic (favouring either brand relevance or consistency). To this purpose, primary data were collected through in-depth semi-structured interviews with key design management representatives chosen on the basis of their executive responsibility for implementing CDI projects with external designers. Importantly, all informants were strategically involved in the management of their respective brands as either the head executive or as part of an executive brand committee. Interviews lasted approximately 90 minutes and were digitally recorded and fully tran- scribed. In addition, internal design briefs, company websites and brand books were analysed as secondary data and used as triangulating analytic tools to discuss and validate the respondents’ answers during interviews. Interview questions initially probed for data on the focal brand’s intended meanings in the minds of both consumers and other key stakeholders. Interviews subse- quently turned to topics of CDI management practices, where the former brand-related answers allowed for eliciting case-specific brand logics of consistency or relevancy at play in relation to guiding practices around the implementation of CDI. Examination of such practices was guided by the

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Key CDI management Description practice (Interview topic/code for analysis)

Search Practice of identifying appropriate external designers/stakeholders through immersion in stakeholder networks and dialogue vis-à-vis firm-specific business objectives Selection Practice of selecting appropriate external designers vis-à-vis firm-specific business objectives Collaborative openness Practice of providing stakeholder access to, and transparency of, firm resources and firm-specific business objectives, values and visions Risks assessment Practice associated with assessing for collaborative approaches that may constitute risks vis-à-vis realizing firm-specific business objectives

Table 2: Overview of interview topics (codes for analysis) on key CDI management practices.

theoretical framework (cf. Section 2) focused on key CDI management practices of search, selection, collaborative openness and risks assessment (see, Table 2). Illustrated by the article’s theoretical framework, a quasi-deductive element played a role in the data collection, analyses and cross-case pattern matching, which is recommended for construct validity when exploring areas of scarce previous research (Yin 2009). However, aligned to the explorative research objective of the article, a grounded theory methodology (Strauss and Corbin 1994) was applied to inductively arrive at the study’s findings. Guided by the theoretical framework, the analysis involved both within and cross- case analyses in an iterative process of open and axial data coding (Miles and Huberman 1994). First, keywords were assigned to interview data passages containing evidence of management practices and brand logics. This was followed by thematic coding, which revealed themes such as (but not limited to) practice of proactive search; practices of providing a high degree of collaborative accessibility; and a loosely coupled stakeholder network approach. As reported in the following sections, supported by verbatim case study quotes for enhanced credibility (Corden and Sainsbury 2006), findings from axial coding revealed relationships within and across cases between dominant brand logics of consistency and relevance and two dominant design management structures of practices, referred to as management models for implementing CDI strategies.

4. Findings Case data revealed the coexistence of brand logics of consistency and relevance across all cases. This coexistence of brand logics presented a difficult balancing act in structuring CDI practices for design–brand management integration. Albeit all companies were involved in balancing the tension between the need for both consistency and relevance of meanings, brand logics differed

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across cases in terms of their dominance, as this interview excerpt illustrates ‘We want to balance creating that novelty value [design identity divergence for brand relevance] and design longevity [design identity convergence for brand consistency] […] but we definitely strive not to be too fashion-oriented [dominant logic of consistency]’ (High-Flyer, manager interview)’. As presented in the following sections, cross-case analyses resulted in findings suggesting two ideal-type management models for implementing CDI, respectively, rooted in either the dominant brand logic of consistency or relevance. The following two sections describe these two management models for implementing CDI strategies structured around practices of search, selection, collaborative openness (providing access and transparency) and finally, risk management perspectives associated with collaborative openness.

4.1 Management model 1: The proactive tightly coupled approach and dominant logic of brand consistency With the cases of Pure-Lines, Retro-Kool, High-Flyer and Clear-Shine, the dominant brand logic of consistency guided a proactive tightly coupled management model. Embedded in values of protecting the meaning of the brands, closely linked to varieties of Scandinavian design values, search and selection practices around external designers focused proactively on initiating and nurturing prolonged stakeholder dialogues through participation in local (national) and international industry trade fairs and design exhibitions. The main management concern with these brands was ensuring that design outputs would be stylistically recognizable by the brand’s target audience. Thus, design values and stylistic approaches of external designers should not deviate too much from the brands’ core design values and heritages firmly rooted in Scandinavian craft and design values as, for instance, illustrated by the case of Retro-Kool:

It’s important for us to have designers different from us [orthogonal value complementarities], but fundamentally with a similar attitude towards design [enhancing value complementarities] […] In other words it’s imperative that you sit down with people [external designers] where at least the basic outline is the same […] then it’s okay if it dashes a bit from pillar to post. (Retro-Kool, manager interview)

The objective of maintaining consistency in terms of stylistic approaches and unique design values was important to these brands to protect the brand meanings that the respective target audiences cherished. Straying too far from the consumer-valued design identities would jeopardize the opportunity to capitalize on existing brand meanings through design identity recognition: ‘It’s that balance […] we have to move forward [stylistic divergence], but people [the brand’s target audience] still need to feel that it is a safe choice [stylistic convergence], that’s really important’ (High-Flyer, manager interview). With these concerns in mind, a copious amount of resources (time and travel) was allocated to carefully consider past and current design identities of potential external designers on the basis of evaluating their design portfolios and learning about their design ideologies and aspirations before committing to a new collaborative project. Such practices were deemed highly important to ensure that collaborative projects would result in product designs upholding a suitable amount of stylistic convergence. On a weekly basis, the brands

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would receive unsolicited design proposals online from stakeholders across the globe. However, the resource-heavy (time-consuming) off-line dialogues with designers were preferred to gain a proper first-hand feel of the person behind the designer. Prolonged dialogues to assist such segmentation practices would pivot around assessing for designers’ genuine willingness to study and empa- thize with the focal brand’s core design values and heritage, which reflected a strong emphasis on building long-term relationships. External designers that made no effort to demonstrate a heartfelt commitment to engage in dialogues of exploring a mutual understanding of one another’s values and visions were largely excluded from being considered a viable strategic resource. For these brands, it was important that they were recognized in the design community for prioritizing mutually beneficial outcomes and collaborative relationships:

I am more than willing to spend a lot of time on that [dialogues with designers] and that’s what we wish to stand for [long term relationships] […] it is really the dialogue and the interplay that is important and then suddenly to have the final product in your hands and give each other a high-five and say ‘this we did damn well together’. (Clear-Shine, manager interview)

Pure-Lines, Retro-Kool, High-Flyer and Clear-Shine all relied heavily on established relationships. To exploit the synergies of past collaborations and the accumulated deep understanding of one another’s values and aspirations (enhancing design complementarities), a high degree of firm accessibility and transparency was provided through practices involving several and continuous physical meetings. Spending resources on providing such accessibility and transparency around the brands’ design heritage, visions and product portfolio strategies (before and after initiating a collaborative design project) was viewed as an intrinsic part of the brands’ approach to implementing CDI strategies long term:

When we have the initial meeting […] I tell about who we are and make it perfectly clear to them how we work […] we do not make small artistic curiosities and the light function has to be prioritised. I highly emphasise honesty […] I do not think that anyone is in doubt about what Clear-Shine stands for when I present and initiate the first meeting and when I hand over a brief […] it is that synergy, which in my opinion makes a great end result. (Clear-Shine, manager interview)

To minimize risks of brand-stakeholder misalignments, these brands provided clear and comprehensive design guides to external designers to guide their creative design processes. Concerned with upholding brand consistency through stylistic convergence, the brands made use of verbal, written and visual means to provide the needed transparency around the intended core brand meanings to raise the probability of having design outcomes reflecting a unique synergy between the brand’s design values and the distinctive style and values of the external designer. At the same time, the executives were conscious of the need not to forge a creative straightjacket for external designers removing all forms of stylistic divergence for brand relevancy:

It is that balance between giving the designers the freedom to come up with new ideas and then it is my job to decide who does what and

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how and make sure that we stay on track in the process, but as a rule the designers do not need to know too much […] that is what we as a company bring to the table […] it is important to us with the links to our history, but it must not become a straightjacket. (High-Flyer, manager interview)

As a supplement to design guides, these companies practiced exploratory workshops with long-trusted external designers in their network. This enabled them to present their brand strategy and visions whilst allowing for more open interpretative sessions on design methodologies, creative visions and knowledge in relation to future projects. Furthermore, to exchange informa- tion and insights, and foster a synergistic relationship with selected designers, transparency of the brands’ product portfolio strategy was, in addition to design briefs, communicated by openly providing access to not yet launched product design concepts:

We are very open about our products […] for example we display next year’s product launches and that is very important so that they can see and understand our ways of thinking ahead and what is to be extracted from our design brief. That kind of openness is important to give them food for creativity and let them see where they may fit in and contribute. (Pure-Lines, manager interview)

4.2 Management model 2: The reactive loosely coupled approach and dominant logic of brand relevance With the cases of Cool-Living and Wood-Tex the dominant brand logic of relevance guided a reactive loosely coupled management model. Grounded in the deeply held brand values of striving to build brand meanings in the market- places and the design communities as the ones daring to challenge dominant design in the industry, resources were allocated to practices for reacting upon design proposals from external designers rather than proactively engaging in intensive stakeholder searches and dialogues. These brands favoured a cultivation of a broader, loosely coupled network of design community stakeholders with little emphasis on allocating resources for firm accessibility and transparency. As Cool-Living and Wood-Tex placed little emphasis on a specific stylistic design approach a search for highly orthogonal or antagonistic stakeholder design values dominated their management practices as they embraced poorly overlapping or even conflicting design complementarities: ‘It is always the design and the original idea that wins […] we do not tie ourselves to a particular line. For Cool-Living brand mobility is an important value’ (Cool-Living, brochure). Thus, allocation of scarce resources for extensive dialogues for strengthening the synergistic effects of long-term collaborations was largely jettisoned in favour of being exposed to as many diverse design proposals as possible. Accordingly, these brands chose to predominantly rely on receiving massive amounts of unsolicited design proposals online from the local and global design communities:

It [stakeholder dialogue] is still all about the designers pitching random proposals to us […] many times we do not even face the designers and some of them I have never met. It takes place online […] we have no preferences with regards to geography, demography or formal education

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it all comes down to the idea [design identity]. Though we are constantly in dialogue with hundreds of designers on different levels […] we have only tasked a few products […] it works best that things come to us. Of course, we do see stuff that is far out there, but that is to prefer than not seeing them at all. (Cool-Living, manager interview)

With Cool-Living and Wood-Tex the core brand meaning was not conceptualized around past design collaborations and specific design identities. To support the aspirational self-images of the brands’ target audiences and build strong brand-stakeholder relationships, a brand meaning of celebrating values of breaking barriers and challenging the industry status quo formed the basis of the dominant brand logic of relevance. The ambition was to enable consumers to reflect their personal identities and lifestyles as design connoisseurs. Thus, design identities with the potential to divide opinions among consumers were important to enable the brand to tap into the social buying motives of those consumer segments striving to express their individuality by disasso- ciating themselves from the mainstream:

If you buy competitor X’s products [competitor brand focused on stylistic convergence] you let it control your own personality by what you communicate with that product […] but if you choose our most signifi- cant designs then I believe that you convey your own personality […] so if you’re a customer in our universe then you are a person informed about design who takes a stance, whereas the customer of competitor X is more influenced by the peer recognition based on the broad knowledge of competitor X’s brand […] and that sort of erases one’s own personality. (Wood-Tex, manager interview)

Prolonged stakeholder dialogues, as observed with the reactive loosely coupled management model, were purposely downplayed in favour of sharing values of risk-taking and boldly swimming against the current with an attitude of anything goes. Rooted in the dominant brand logic of relevance, the management of brand meaning, as conveyed through the brands’ portfolios, adopted an eclectic approach, understood as bringing together what appears to be the best in various doctrines, methods or styles to form an aesthetic whole:

[…] the value [of rejecting a strong focus on stylistic convergence] lies in enabling our customers to pick and choose from our brand […] I am actu- ally quite content if we make a design that existing customers find unat- tractive because that’s what I call ‘edge’ [design identity divergence] […] if the products we develop have the quality to stand alone – an iconic quality based on their own personality [design identity] – then they may easily fit together […] it all crumbles away if one decides to make thematic stuff where every piece has to fit into some sort of system [design identity convergence] […] what I have learned is that over time these personalities merge together [eclectic approach] so it does not matter at all that designs are fragmented […] and we are praised for that approach […] the foreign designers love our collections because they see what we dare to do. (Wood-Tex, manager interview)

This reactive approach to stakeholder dialogue may at first hand suggest that ‘collaboration’ was largely left out of the CDI equation. However, this was

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not the case. To receive as many novel design proposals to choose from as possible, this reactive approach to search and selection focused on practices of stimulating stakeholder-initiated dialogues by means of purposively commu- nicating a brand meaning of exploration and openness. In this respect, eclectic product design portfolios were deemed key to this approach to encourage a broad spectrum of stakeholders to engage with the brand and send off their work for the design executives to react upon. Thus, dialogues for new collaborative projects were mostly initiated by external designers and prolonged by design executives if an opportunity to hone and market a quality design proposal revealed itself. These practices implied less focus on managing external designers’ creative processes through extensive dialogues and largely rejected the selection of designers based on perceived enhancing design complementarities ex ante to the creative design process. Rather, resources were deployed to focus on a broad loosely coupled network of external designers to collaborative with directly on the basis of evaluating the distinctiveness of the design concepts or prototypes submitted to them. This practice was important to avoid a myopic stakeholder focus due to the constraints of a particular aesthetic dogma. Consider the following interview excerpt from the Wood-Tex case:

Interviewer: Is it mostly designers that Wood-Tex knows from previous collaborations that you make use of […] how would you describe your approach? Respondent: […] It’s evident that they [previously used designers] take up some of my time, but recent collaborations with designer X, Y and Z just came out of nowhere, but that has to do with my approach being specifically about the product. Interviewer: So, what I am hearing is that what they [the designers] have formerly designed […] looking at their portfolios and so on […] does not matter that much to you? Respondent: No, it doesn’t! well […] I am not completely indifferent about that because I think they [portfolios] may tell a lot about the designers, but a marriage-like relationship to a designer based on their espoused design-philosophy and so on may cause a myopic view. (Wood-Tex, manager interview)

With no ambition to try to steer or guide the external designers’ creative process for the purpose of stylistic convergence across the product portfolio, Cool-Living and Wood-Tex did not provide detailed design briefs or brand handbooks. Due to the low focus on ensuring enhancing design complementarities, the need for strengthening external designers’ in-depth knowledge of their intended brand meaning (and other business objectives) was not perceived as a critical risk management issue. Instead, resources were allocated to the highly demanding task of browsing through, evaluating and responding rapidly to unsolicited proposals grounded in a cost–benefit analysis that such practices would lower the costs of finding the next suitable design to support the intended dynamic and countercultural meaning of these brands:

We lay our eyes on a lot and not a day goes by where we do not receive 5–10 proposals and after fairs, having met a lot of people, it may be 15–20 proposals a day. And the thing about working with designers

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is also to be viewed as a cost at the end of the day […] so we have an opportunity to lower our costs compared to not receiving any proposals. (Cool-Living, manager interview)

Although accessibility and transparency were downplayed, access to produc- tion facilities, techniques and know-how was provided to external designers in the phase of prototyping and detailing a design proposal of interest. However, due to the risk of external designers trying to fit their creativity into fixed boundaries of a focal firm, providing knowledge (accessibility) of the existing resource base in the concept development phase was purposely restrained. Thus, to align processes of collaborative design with external designers, a relaxed focus on access and transparency dominated these brands’ deployment of this reactive loosely coupled management model.

5. Concluding discussions 5.1 Implications for design management theory This article makes three main contributions towards (collaborative) design management theory. First, while design management research does acknowledge the important role of design in brand management and vice versa, extant studies largely fail to look at how brand logics affect design management practices for implementing CDI strategies (cf. Nedergaard and Gyrd-Jones 2013). This study contributes both theoretically and empirically by explicitly recognizing the role of brand logics as important units of analysis, which provides a framework for enriching the field’s predominantly descriptive approach. Second, the present study shows that brand logics of consistency and relevance may coexist in organizations, but also vary across cases in terms of their dominance. In turn, this study suggests that the varying dominance of such management logics may explain variations in structures of practices. Third, and finally, the proactive tightly coupled management model observed in this study finds support in extant research in terms of aiming for close and long-lasting stakeholder relationships linked to practices of elaborate, unambiguous briefing on business and design objectives for brand consistency (see, e.g. Bruce and Morris 1998). However, findings related to the reactive loosely coupled management model challenge such mainstream, normative approaches. In the cases of Cool-Living and Wood-Tex, empirical evidence pointed to practices of largely jettisoning formal briefing practices and investments in long-lasting relationships as a core imperative for the effective implementation of a brand-supportive CDI strategy. These cases demonstrated that the brand logic of relevance guides practices of a continuous search for new stakeholder relationships as an effective practice for strengthening the potential access to unexpected design concepts, which in turn supports brand meaning to develop dynamically for sustained brand relevance.

5.2 Implications for design management practices The study’s main implications to design management practice call attention to the concept of organizational ambidexterity (March 1991), which posits that organizations, to sustain competitive advantage, both short and long term, cannot solely rely on practices of exploiting existing resources (e.g. continuously

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refining existing design identities) or exploration (e.g. continuously searching for the ‘next’ design identity without any sense of continuity). This reminds us that brands need to temporally balance between exploiting existing brand meaning (e.g. linked to firm idiosyncratic design identities) against the need for brand meaning to evolve to stay relevant with existing target audiences (Beverland et al. 2015; Kapferer 2012) and potentially ‘persuade new audiences’ to consider the brand (Halstrøm and Galle 2015). In the same vein, Nielsen and Christensen (2014) argue that an important distinction should be made between administrative (exploitative) and entrepreneurial (explorative) design management dependent on the desired degree of change to be achieved. Although this balancing act, over time, has not been included in the present study, the deployment of the two ideal-type CDI management models thus needs to be rooted in a reflexive awareness of the changing situational needs for exploitation versus exploration of brand meaning. Such reflexivity calls for design management ambidexterity in the sense that design executives should consciously, and continuously, question the strategic relevance of existing dominant brand logics in their organizations and promote shifts in brand logics and practices accordingly as needed. Reflecting on the findings of the present study, such ambidextrous adjustments in practices may be facilitated through a stronger awareness of how varying organizational business objectives in turn call for differences in structures of practices. In times of need for brand consistency, design executives may allocate resources for proactively engaging in intensive and prolonged dialogues with external designers to gain deep insights into these stakeholders’ potential enhancing and (moderately) orthogonal design complementarities (cf. Gyrd- Jones and Kornum 2013). This approach may be supported by practices of high collaborative openness (firm–stakeholder accessibility and transparency) with a narrow and trusted network of external designers. This allows for long- term, mutually beneficial relationships to grow and for upholding a moderate degree of design process control to the end of ensuring converging design identities across the product portfolio. Conversely, for firms in need of dynamically evolving the meaning of their brand for sustained relevance in the marketplace (logic of brand relevance), CDI practices associated with the reactive loosely coupled management model are needed to ensure design identity convergence across the product portfolio. This management model is enacted through an eclectic approach to assessing for design complementarities and implies allocating resources for reactively engaging in dialogues with a broad array of external designers on the basis of received design proposals (sketches or rough prototypes) to identify appropriate collaborative partnerships. Managing brand meaning is thus to be based directly on assessing for design proposals’ antagonistic design complementarities. To support the objective of identifying external designers capable of supplying such antagonistic design complementarities, resources should be allocated to immersing the brand in multiple stakeholder networks and communicate an explorative, playful and inclusive approach to the brand’s design strategy. Importantly, this model challenges the dominant view that a reliance on external design expertise implies a strong management focus on building long-term, highly transparent and close relationships. In fact, the present study’s empirical findings suggest that the quite opposite approach may make much more sense for brands in situational need of dynamically developing, rather than reinforcing, existing brand meanings.

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5.3 Limitations and further research Although examined in-depth a limited number of six cases were included in the study, which restricts the external validity of findings. However, aiming for theoretical, rather than statistical, generalization (Eisenhardt 1989), the study contributes to theory in terms of how to understand configurations and structures of observed CDI management practices. This study examined design- experienced firms and explored two dominant brand logics. Future research may favourably explore theoretical relationships between CDI management practices and brand logics with design-illiterate firms within different industries and geographies to further strengthen the richness, accuracy and potential generalizability of the presented findings.

Acknowledgement The author would like to thank the two anonymous reviewers for valuable comments and suggestions that helped improve an earlier draft of the article.

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Suggested citation Nedergaard, N. (2018), ‘Understanding structures of Collaborative Design Innovation (CDI) management practices: A strategic brand alignment approach’, Artifact: Journal of Design Practice, 5:1, pp. 2.1–2.21, doi: 10.1386/ art.5.1.2.1_1

Contributor details Nicky Nedergaard, M.Sc., Ph.D., is assistant professor of design and innovation management at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, School of Design. Contact: Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, Schools of Architecture, Design and Conservation, Institute of Visual Design, School of Design, Philip de Langes Allé 10, DK-1435 Copenhagen K, Denmark. E-mail: [email protected]

Nicky Nedergaard has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work in the format that was submitted to Intellect Ltd.

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