Using material properties to understand and shape relationships in public and social services.

Public and social services are becoming more relational and less transactional (Muir & Parker, 2014). As we evaluate different public services on a complexity spectrum, those who rely on human and interpersonal skills – like healthcare, education, ageing, and immigration – depend on the relational capacity of service providers and the relational support from family and peers. When attempting to deconstruct social systems in its basic elements, we have nodes and relations between the nodes. Specifically in social systems, nodes represent actors or institutions where these become more evident than the connections between them. This also characterizes how the complexity of systems has been historically mapped in two dimensions. The representation of hard systems, like in systems dynamics (Jay Wright Forrester, 1989) and in soft systems, like rich pictures (Checkland, 2000a), has given more attention to the nodes than the relationships between the nodes. Giga Mapping (Sevaldson, 2011) draws attention to this and created a color-coded topology to classify systemic relations (Sevaldson, 2013). Inspired on this topology, we design a three dimensional tool that uses physical material properties – like yarn, stainless steel, and rubber elastics – to understand and shape relational public and social services. We used this tool at a workshop at RSD3, where we explored the relational properties of different materials, we compared relational mapping in two and three dimensions and experimented with the format of group facilitation. The output was a relational-material vocabulary for each of the three-public and social service challenges presented. The relational-material vocabulary allowed teams to granularly define the properties of the relationships between the actors in a socially complex public service setting

Transforming health care systems through design

Realizing change within the health care industry is notoriously difficult, due in part to the industry’s complex set of problems with inextricable interdependencies (Jones, 2013). The challenge is amplified even further amid the constraints of Mayo Clinic, a historically successful health care institution that has been around for over a century. Recently, design has been gaining a reputation for leading innovation of health care products and services to improve the patient experience (Jones, 2013). There has also been an extension of conventional design thinking methods to include social systems design methods that work to create large-scale transformations within health care systems. A systemic approach to innovation enhances the impact that the design process can have by working to influence strategic parts of the system and the ways in which they interconnect (Mulgan & Leadbeater, 2013). This paper illustrates examples of systemic design practice within Mayo Clinic Center For Innovation and highlights challenges as well as patterns of successful systemic shifts learned empirically

Efectos de la ley orgánica de apoyo humanitario, para combatir la crisis sanitaria derivada del Covid–19, en trabajadores de una empresa privada de la ciudad de Quito

Analizar los efectos que tuvo la vigencia la Ley Orgánica de Apoyo Humanitario, implementada dentro de las políticas de gobierno del ex presidente Moreno, en una empresa privada dedicada a la salud de la ciudad de Quito en un contexto de pandemia.La implementación de la Ley Orgánica de Apoyo Humanitaria – LOAH en el país, como respuesta a los efectos de la pandemia del coronavirus, generó una serie de ajustes en todos los sectores de la sociedad; y, de manera especial en el ámbito laboral. Los fuertes ajustes aplicados conllevan a la flexibilización laboral y en consecuencia la vulneración de los derechos laborales adquiridos previamente, situación que generó un impacto en los trabajadores de la salud, empeorando sus condiciones de vida, las cuales ya se encontraba afectadas previo a la pandemia. En este contexto, se analiza los efectos que tuvo la vigencia de la referida Ley, dentro de las políticas aplicadas por el gobierno del ex presidente Moreno, en una empresa privada dedicada a la salud en la ciudad de Quito, en el contexto de pandemia. Para alcanzar este objetivo se analizó en primera instancia el contexto político, económico y jurídico sobre el cual se desarrolló la LOAH (2020), con la finalidad de establecer de qué manera se afectó el mercado de trabajo y las consecuencias que tuvieron que enfrentar los trabajadores frente a los empleadores, para lo cual se realizó análisis bibliográfico y entrevistas a las partes involucradas para conocer de manera directa y clara sus vivencias, problemas y situaciones de carácter social, que se reflejan en un incremento de las horas de trabajo, disminución de sus ingresos y empeoramiento de su situación económica, condiciones de vida y bienestar, así como también afectaciones de carácter psicológico, escenarios que podrían ser modificados con la participación activa del Estado a través de políticas públicas que salvaguarden el estricto cumplimiento de la normativa legal vigente en materia laboral y la Constitución como norma suprema.Maestrí

Transforming Public Organizations into Co-designing Cultures

When designers try to create lasting change in the public sector, their aim is not only to co-design meaningful new or improved services but also to embed the capacity – rather than dependency – of co-design into the organization. Current research suggests that this embedded co-design capacity allows for ongoing transformation. Organizational change can be achieved in various ways, one of which is by facilitating experiential capacity-building programs that immerse public employees in codesigning methods and approaches over the course of several months. In this context, designers often experience that the existing organizational culture strongly constrains the adoption and application of new ways of working. However, many designers are not trained to address this cultural phenomenon. Through a systems-oriented design (SOD) approach, two cases of capacity building programs from different countries were analyzed, Fifth Space in Canada and Experimenta in Chile. An integrated research approach combining methods, such as research by design, gigamapping, interviews, and literature mapping was used to get new insights into the complex, contemporary design practice of nurturing and spreading organizational co-design capacities. The analysis of both programs drew my attention to the liminal space between the pre-existing culture in the organization and the emerging culture related to the introduction of new methods and ways of working. While it seemed like these conflicting cultures prohibited lasting innovation, there was also a lack of models and reflective tools to examine these intercultural dynamics. This thesis presents analytical and conceptual models that help to make interactions between the emerging and existing organizational culture more explicit and actionable. First, the Ripppling model provides three analytical dimensions – paradigm, practices, and the physical dimension – to analyze the interactions between the emerging and dominant organizational cultures. This analysis can help to position the emerging culture in a constructive way without alienating the dominant culture, and to enable the co-existence of both for long-lasting transformational change. The Ripppling ecosystem model builds on the micro-interactions analyzed with the Ripppling model and proposes a system of embedded layers for large-scale cultural change processes that can have effects beyond the organization that participates in the capacity-building program. Taken together, the results of this thesis help to explain the difficulties public organizations face when introducing new capacities, such as co-design. My work suggests that these new capacities function as carriers or vehicles of cultural meaning that will inherently generate productive or unproductive tensions with the pre-existing culture. Therefore, one has to carefully recognize and address the underlying interactions across cultures to build organizational transformation strategically and to leverage the full potential of co-designing approaches. This work gives new insights into how to create continuous change in the public sector and has implications for future design practice, research, and education

Cruise visitors' intention to return as land tourists and recommend a visited destination: a structural equation model

This study analyses cruise visitors’ travel experience, their intention to return to a destination as land tourists and the probability to recommend. Consumer’s satisfaction is evaluated by taking into account the economic production factors, that is human and physical capital. “Satisfaction with prices” is also included to evaluate the monetary value of the overall purchasing experience. Safety in the harbour is considered as a further attribute. The empirical data were collected via a survey of cruise ship passengers that stopped in Cartagena de Indias (Colombia) during 2009. A structural equation model (SEM) is developed. The findings reveal that satisfaction is positively affected by human and physical capital, while overall satisfaction positively influences customers’ loyalty. Loyalty is also positively influenced by prices, whereas negatively by an unsafe perception. Finally, loyalty positively effects both the probability of return as land tourists and to recommend, though with a different magnitude