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Vol. 13, No. 3, Summer 2002
Kathleen Formosa, Associate Chair, Department of Design and Management, Parsons School of Design; Steven Kroeter, Chair, Department of Design and Management, Parsons School of Design
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Kathleen Formosa and Steven Kroeter, associate chair and chair, respectively, of the department of design and management at Parsons School of Design, in New York, are advocates for making design-in-business a mandatory component of MBA programs. Their rationale is that future managers and executives will need this background as more and more corporations exploit design to distinguish themselves from competitors. At some companies, such as Tiffany & Co., design has been part of the corporate strategy for a quarter of a century. In 1975, Tiffany's chairman, Walter Hoving, organized a series of lectures, to be delivered at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School, to promote his vision that design has a direct impact on a business's bottom line. Unfortunately, say the authors, the concept of endowing business students with a solid understanding of the principles and processes of design never took hold. Kroeter and Formosa have surveyed 19 MBA programs from the top 10 business schools as ranked by the Wall Street Journal, BusinessWeek, and US News & World Report, and "found that not a single one addressed or incorporated design into their curricula in any significant way." And now, as American businesses face an increasingly global market place, an economy in recession, and saturated markets, design literacy is more important than ever.
The authors found that the small number of courses in MBA programs that address design tend to do so within the context of the new product development process. "While certainly of benefit," they explain, "this approach, by definition, confines the design discussion to the important but limited context of product design." One program that does offer a somewhat larger view of design is at Berkeley's Haas School of Business, where Design as a Strategic Management Issue focuses on the areas of product design, package design, and corporate identity design. But this is unusual.
The ideal solution, say the authors, which would allow students to see and value the connections among design literacy and the common areas of business and management practice, would be a design-oriented preparatory or supplementary workshop supported by a formalized, credit-bearing curricular option. They recommend that all MBA candidates take a foundation workshop in design and a one-semester overview of general design/business strategies. Marketing students would have an additional design management requirement and could pursue this interest further by registering for an elective. As Formosa and Kroeter see it, "Design literacy will prove itself to be an integral part of all business-related decisions in much the same way that literacy in technology is today."
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