A Study on Designers’ Attitude for Open Innovation in Turkey

In design education, students benefit not only from their project courses’ content but also from the information resources they contain. When it comes to the repetition of unique problems and solution-oriented approaches in the design professions, the resources used to research solutions for the problems encountered in design education are also specific to that problem. This situation highlights resource diversity, and especially resource sharing, at various stages and thus opens a view into innovation habits among designers’ behaviors. This empirical study explores whether or not designers’ behaviors can be related to their practices in design project courses, regarding their open innovation tendencies. Semi-structured interviews with 20 designers are used to form a case study. Interviewees had experience with both in-house designers and freelancers, therefore purposive sampling was used. The results were analyzed thematically and discussed under open innovation practices

EFFECTS OF INNOVATION TYPES ON PRODUCT IDENTITIES: DOES RADICAL INNOVATION LEAD TO A MORE INTEGRATED PRODUCT IDENTITY?

In this study, the relation between innovation capabilities and product identity integrity is investigated through a theoretical frame, which is briefly tested through Turkish television industry.There are many studies in literature that discuss design’s role in innovation. The differentiation of product design activities from technological improvements was also discussed before; however more recent studies conducted by Dell’Era and Verganti also discuss the visual language aspect and its contribution to product innovation. Even if many aspects of visual elements and their effect on perceived novelty are discussed, the overall outcomes of design-driven innovation on product identity and brand identity still need to be discussed. There is a prior study conducted by Dell’Era and Vergani (2007) that provide quantitative clues on the subject, but theoretical explanations and their evaluations on fieldworks are still needed.This study aims to provide theoretical explanations to product identity outcomes of certain innovation types. Literatures on innovation, organizational creativity, and comparative studies on radical and incremental innovations are studied together with studies on product identity strategies to provide a relation between innovation types and product identity outcomes.The results support prior studies that claim companies with radical innovation capabilities have more homogenous product identity. Also, the provided theoretical relations are identified to a degree in the study. The outcomes can be suggested and developed further for developing product identity strategies in organizations

Exploring the relation between students’ research behaviours in project courses and open innovation

In this study, the similarities between the actions of design students’ in product design project courses and open innovation processes were examined through a survey conducted among the students. Studies on open innovation were evaluated together with up-to-date discussions about design and its role in innovation and business environment in general. Since design can take crucial roles in innovation and management, the comparison of design students’ actions in product design courses with probable expectations in the work environment can provide information about if these project courses could act as a preparation for professional career. The theoretical relation between innovation and design was discussed to be followed by examination of similarities between product design project courses and open innovation environments. Afterwards, a brief field study conducted with third and fourth grade product design students was analyzed to explore any resemblance between their research preferences during product design project courses and open innovation practices. Also, their awareness on open innovation subject was sought to understand if the possible resemblance was a result of design education’s nature. The results suggest that students’ behaviors during product design project courses are in line with open innovation concept to a degree, even though their awareness on the subject is low. Keywords: Design, Open innovation, Design education, Design thinking, Design student

Effects of innovation types on product identities: Does radical innovation lead to a more integrated product identity?

In this study, the relation between innovation capabilities and product identity integrity is investigated through a theoretical frame, which is briefly tested through Turkish television industry.There are many studies in literature that discuss design’s role in innovation. The differentiation of product design activities from technological improvements was also discussed before; however more recent studies conducted by Dell’Era and Verganti also discuss the visual language aspect and its contribution to product innovation. Even if many aspects of visual elements and their effect on perceived novelty are discussed, the overall outcomes of design-driven innovation on product identity and brand identity still need to be discussed. There is a prior study conducted by Dell’Era and Vergani (2007) that provide quantitative clues on the subject, but theoretical explanations and their evaluations on fieldworks are still needed.This study aims to provide theoretical explanations to product identity outcomes of certain innovation types. Literatures on innovation, organizational creativity, and comparative studies on radical and incremental innovations are studied together with studies on product identity strategies to provide a relation between innovation types and product identity outcomes.The results support prior studies that claim companies with radical innovation capabilities have more homogenous product identity. Also, the provided theoretical relations are identified to a degree in the study. The outcomes can be suggested and developed further for developing product identity strategies in organizations

A study on correlation between brand identity integrity and innovation capabilities

#nofulltext# --- Ceylan Esen, Özge (Arel Author) --- Conference: Proceedings of NordDesign 2016, Volume 2, Trondheim, Norway, 10th - 12th August 2016.Al design manufacturers (ODM) before starting their own brand manufacture (OBM).Therefore, those companies started production basically by producing for other companies, while they started product design activities by designing for other brands. Design fixation is defined as the tendency to be fixated to design solutions that are previously seen before starting a design process (Jansson & Smith, 1991). It may be hypothesized that, it will take longer to develop a brand identity in an upcoming product concept for those companies that have an OEM and ODM background along with an incremental innovation capability. In their studies, Dell’Era and Verganti (2007) also found that companies that have a radical innovator character seem to have a more integrated brand identity when compared to incremental innovators. It is also hinted in literature that companies which have OEM and ODM background have difficulties about transitioning to build more radical innovations (Hobday, 1998). In this study, brand identity integrity of companies that have an OEM and ODM background are evaluated along with others that have more radical innovation capabilities. This evaluation of brand identity integration is conducted through DFA. The DFA method is originally used for analyzing the brand identity characteristics of a company; however, in this study it is used in a more critical way to observe how scattered the product portfolios are for companies with OEM and ODM backgrounds. As the result of the study, it may be claimed that companies that could become affected by design fixation, may have less integrated brand identities