JISCMail - PHD-DESIGN Archives

Alpay Er notes the importance of broad reading and a theoretical perspective that allows us "to understand and analyze social phenomena, including design activity within a broader context."

One challenge in developing this perspective is that of linking large-scale social and economic perspective to the details of industrial and professional practice.

Large-scale issues are covered in macro-level analysis. This level of theory is typified by macroeconomics, culture theory, political economics, and large-scale sociology.

Details are covered in micro-level analysis. This is typified by management studies, microeconomics, small group sociology, professional studies, and documentation of direct practice. It is also seen in specific ranges of industrial theory and practice documentation.

Bridging and linking these two levels of analysis, we find meso-level theories. These range from organization theory and some areas of microeconomics to cultural anthropology and social anthropology.

This is a large body of knowledge. It is understandable that designers - who are already busy working to master the technical and professional tools of design -- aren't usually exposed to readings that offer a deep and wide perspective.

In the years to come, more design schools should begin to offer build courses that provide a broader context for design. Until then, a program of individual reading can provide a useful start, broad and deep both.

There are several paths through the literature on the relations between design, production, social structure, and history.

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One body of literature examines the workings of industry in a way that places specific industrial practice in its broad context.

One masterpiece of this literature is David Halberstam's (1987) book, The Reckoning.

Halberstam offers a broad, sympathetic account of the decline of the American automobile industry in the years following the post-war boom, and the reasons for the growth and triumph of the Japanese auto companies in the 1970s and early 1980s. While much has changed since this book was written, it offers a thorough and highly readable account of industrial management embedded in the multiple matrices of the political economy, factory life, and the markets. It also offers a lot of insight in managerial decision-making - good and bad - as well as on the relations between design issues and industrial production.

The virtue of this book is that it offers a rich systemic overview, augmented by a probing analysis of the ways in which details affect the whole from each point and every level in a system of industrial production.

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A second approach involves the broad, synoptic overview of management thinking by writers who locate managerial knowledge and decisions on the working life of industrial practice.

Two scholars, Roy Jacques and Charles M. Savage, have approached these subjects from useful, complementary perspectives. Their books survey a broad field from the late 1700s to the current era.

Jacques's (1996) book is titled, Manufacturing the Employee. Management Knowledge from the 19th to the 21st Centuries. Jacques offers a broad understanding of how the social relations of production were established. He examines changing conceptions of work as embedded in the philosophical perspective and industrial practice of different times.

Charles M. Savage's (1996) Fifth Generation Management addresses the same range of issues in a different way. Savage's goal is to provide working managers with an understanding of how knowledge and process interact to shape products and services. To develop this knowledge, Savage also offers the reader a useable guided tour of management thought and industrial practice in different eras.

The issues and perspectives they offer are beautifully designed to give a broad theoretical overview linked to the details of practice. Each of these books is supported by a rich reference list that will enable the interested reader to dig deeper.

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Peter Drucker offers the broad overview of macroeconomics and the political economic context within which contemporary industrial practice is located. This is an Olympian perspective, but Drucker supports his ideas with useful examples gathered over decades of careful observation in industry and economics.

Drucker's thinking is summarized his (1990) The New Realities. This is a thoughtful, incisive overview of industry in post-industrial times. He expands on these ideas in Post-Capitalist Society (1993) .

One of the reasons for Peter Drucker's enormous reputation and huge impact is his unique combination of erudition, theoretical sophistication and historical accuracy linked to the direct, empirical observation of working life in the fields he has studied.

No one in recent years has done better than Peter Drucker in examining the rich network of relations between production, social structure, and history. His work is doubly illuminating because he has been so skilled in the use of examples that place theory in the context of practice.

Designers who plan to work in the direct industrial setting will also appreciate Peter Senge's work on organizational learning. While Senge (1990) places the development of the organization in a large systemic context, his work on organizational learning ids also useful for small firms, design practices among them.

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The work of W. Edwards Deming offers a fourth avenue. Deming was a mathematical physicist who developed a passion for statistical quality control in industrial applications.

While W. Edwards Deming is often identified as a quality guru, his own focus was effective leadership. First recognized in the West for his work with Japanese industry in the decades following the Second World War, he summarized his work in fourteen "principles for the transformation of Western management" (Deming 1986: 18) and the "transformation of ... industry" (Deming 1986: 23).

Deming bases his approach on what he terms "profound knowledge" (Deming 1993: 94-118). Deming's method is based on the development of social, intellectual and psychological values operating in comprehensive organization-wide systems that capture and reinforce the values and knowledge of an entire organization. Deming saw organizations as organic entireties linked by the flow of knowledge. He understood and outlined the leadership criteria, the human criteria, and the ethical criteria that make it possible for knowledge to flow effectively through organizations. Many consider Deming's theories and practices to be the highest expression of effective management for the industrial age. I see Deming's system of profound knowledge as an articulate leadership system for the post-industrial economy.

Deming's two books (1986, 1993) give a deep, sympathetic view of the industrial process by a man who believed that industry works best when managers and workers both participate in workplace leadership.

As the dense reference lists in Jacques and Savage indicate, it's possible to read for years to get a real grip on this field. This is especially true for those who want to look under the hood of industry at the same time that they want to understand the large-scale relations between production, social structure, and history.

Design schools that can afford to expand their libraries in this direction can start with these two bibliographies. Schools on a more limited budget can make good use of the reference list I provide below.

For those who want an overview of these issues in the form of a broad but entertaining program of self-directed reading, I'd suggest reading these six books in sequence: Halberstam (1987), Jacques (1996), Savage (1996), Drucker (1990), Walton (1989), Deming (1993).

Those who want a more comprehensive perspective may wish to explore the rest of the titles described above and below.

-- Ken Friedman

Further reading, by section

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Those who want to look more deeply into the details and system of large-scale industrial production by manufacturing firms will benefit from three informative views on manufacturing by Henri Fayol, Henry Ford, and Alfred P. Sloan. All three are distinguished industrial managers from the early years of modern industrial mass production.

Henri Fayol's (1987) General and Industrial Management, Henry Ford's (1991) Ford on Management: Harnessing the American Spirit and Alfred
Sloan's (1986) My Years with General Motors are reprints of earlier classics.

These books are for those who want to read more deeply. These books should be read with a critical eye to place them in perspective. These managers represent the large-scale industrial perspective from the standpoint of the old-fashioned captains - and field marshals - of industry. Those who are willing to undertake the sometimes-difficult work of reading these books will find them immensely useful, as much for what's wrong in them as for what is right.

In this connection, Peter Drucker's (1993) The Concept of the Corporation remains a classic. Originally written in 1945, it was the landmark study of General Motors ands the first great empirical and theoretical overview of modern industrial management. It was said to have enraged Alfred P. Sloan, and his anger served as one of the stimuli for writing his own memoir.

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Jack Beatty's (1998) The World According to Drucker offers an overview of Drucker's work and ideas.

Drucker's own (1994) autobiography, Adventures of a Bystander offers a picture of the man himself that will place his views and ideas in context.

The large-scale overview of contemporary industrial production in the context of the global economy is the focus of Daniel Bell's influential 1976 work, The Coming of Post-industrial Society. A Venture in Social Forecasting. The 1999 edition includes an informative new introduction.

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Deming's own books are intellectually exciting, dense, and rich with detail. They can also be a tough read. Never was an author more careful with acknowledgements and credit to colleagues, and rarely is an author as slow and careful to develop ideas as the systematic and thorough Deming.

Books by Deming's students give a clear overview and an easily digested summary of Deming's central ideas. Best among these is Mary Walton's (1989) The Deming Management Method. Another readable and informative book is Rafael Aguayo's (1990) Dr. Deming: the man who taught the Japanese about quality. Engineers will particularly appreciate William W. Scherkenbach's (1991) thorough and comprehensive The Deming Route to Quality and Productivity.

References

Aguayo, Rafael. 1990. Dr. Deming: the man who taught the Japanese about quality. London: Mercury Books.

Beatty, Jack. 1998. The World According to Drucker. London: Orion Business Books.

Bell, Daniel. 1999. The Coming of Post-industrial Society. A Venture in Social Forecasting. New York: Basic Books.

Deming, W. Edwards. 1986. Out of the Crisis. Quality, Productivity and Competitive Position. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Deming, W. Edwards. 1993. The New Economics for Industry, Government, Education. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Center for Advanced Engineering Study.

Drucker, Peter F. 1990. The New Realities. London, Mandarin.

Drucker, Peter F. 1993. The Concept of the Corporation. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers.

Drucker, Peter F. 1993. Managing in Turbulent Times. Oxford: Butterworth-Heinemann.

Drucker, Peter F. 1993. Post-Capitalist Society. Oxford: Butterworth-Heinemann.

Drucker, Peter F. 1994. Adventures of a Bystander. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers.

Fayol, Henri. 1987. General and Industrial Management. London: Pitman Learning.

Ford, Henry. 1991. Ford on Management: Harnessing the American Spirit. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.

Halberstam, David. 1987. The Reckoning. New York: Avon Books.

Jacques, Roy. 1996. Manufacturing the employee. Management knowledge from the 19th to the 21st centuries. London: Sage.

Savage, Charles M. 1996. Fifth generation management. Boston: Butterworth-Heinemann.

Scherkenbach, William W. 1991. The Deming Route to Quality and Productivity. Rockville, Maryland: Mercury Press.

Senge, Peter M. 1990. The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization. New York: Doubleday.

Sloan, Alfred P. 1986. My Years with General Motors. Harmondsworth, England: Penguin.