Managing as Designing

Managing as Designing explores "the design attitude," a new focus for analysis and decision making for managers that draws on examples of decision making and leadership in architecture, art, and design. Based on a series of conference papers given at the opening of the Peter B. Lewis Building (designed by Frank Gehry) at the Weatherhead School of Management, Case Western Reserve University, the book includes keynote speeches from Frank Gehry and Karl Weick.

The premise of this book is that managers should act not only as decision makers, but also as designers. Though decision and design are inextricably linked in management action, managers and scholars have too long emphasized the decision face of management over the design face. In a series of essays from a multitude of disciplines, the authors develop a theory of the design attitude in contrast to the more traditionally accepted and practiced decision attitude.

The book will appeal primarily to scholars of management theory and organization strategy and managers, with many contributions from a variety of academic backgrounds including architecture, sociology, design, history, choreography, strategy, economics, music, and accounting. There is a potential for strong crossover appeal to these groups, especially to those people and groups interested in design and product development.

Richard J. Boland, Jr is Professor of Information Systems and Professor of Accountancy at the Weatherhead School of Management, Case Western Reserve University. Fred Collopy is Professor and Chair of the Department of Information Systems at the Weatherhead School of Management, Case Western Reserve University.

"Boland and Collopy have produced a thought-provoking book that will most surely challenge a reader's views of management and of organization design. They portray management not as a science of rational decision making within a known and stable world but, instead, as an art of generating visions and pathways for reaching these visions within an uncertain and dynamic world. This fresh glimpse of the managerial role provokes a series of fleeting but revealing insights regarding the truly exceptional leader."—Robert Zmud, Michael F. Price College of Business, University of Oklahoma