Toward an Architectural Theory of Innovation: Explicating Design, Networks, and Microprocesses

Abstract

A growing body of literature confirms the need to better understand the processes and institutional underpinnings of organizational change, especially for those transformational efforts aimed at improving innovation, sustainability, and ethical governance. Although critics have called for more scholarship on design culture as a potential source of insight, the question of how others outside of management disciplines might approach sustainable organizational and institutional change and innovation has been principally underexplored. For this qualitative ethnographic study, we collected and analyzed design practice artifacts produced by Architects in order to gain empirical insight into the systemic process antecedents of change, innovation, and sustainability. The paper contributes explanations of design culture, the deployment of abductive reasoning and figure-ground assignment. In addition, it identifies and sheds theoretical light on three (3) emergent change process constructs: paradoxical cognition, network ensembles, and interpretive microprocesses. The paper concludes with an integrative discussion, critical comments, and additional areas for future research.

Keywords: Abductive reasoning; Architects; boundary devices; change; creativity; design culture; divergent thinking; figure-ground; governance; innovation; institutional theory; interpretive microprocesses; network ensembles; paradox