Designing Business and Management

Designing Business builds on the idea that design is about improving the lives of people, that management can be a noble profession and that 'management, at its heart is a social activity' (Falk 1961).
The book enquires into the nature and meaning of business, questions the character of current business activities and explores the extent and potential role of design in bringing about positive change to businesses and society. It also embraces problems of public organizations where the social is the business.

Scholars and practitioners from management and design address the challenges and issues of designing business from a design perspective. Designing Business combines practical models and grounded theories to improve organizations by design. For designing managers and managing designers, the book offers visual and conceptual models as well as theoretical concepts that connect the practice of designing with the activities of changing, organizing and managing. The book zooms in on designing beyond products and services. It focuses on designing businesses with a particular onus on social business and social entrepreneurship.

Designing Business contributes to and enhances the discourse between leading design and management scholars; offers a first outline of issues, concepts, practices, methods and principles that currently represent the body of knowledge pertaining to designing business, with a special focus on perceiving business as a social activity; and explores the practices of designing and managing, their commonalities, distinctions and boundaries.