'REALIST' STAKEHOLDER ANALYSIS IN DESIGN

The term 'stakeholder' is now applied almost ubiquitously in Western society, often serving to provide legitimation for a multiplicity of agendas. For designers there are profound implications for ethical conduct attached to the veracity of stakeholder consultation from which major schemes...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Visible language 2009-05, Vol.43 (2/3), p.113-123
Main Author: Doherty, Mike
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Design
Discourse analysis
Ethics
Intervention
Locus of Control
Political power
R&D
Realism
Reflexivity
Research & development
Stakeholders
Studies
Theory
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:The term 'stakeholder' is now applied almost ubiquitously in Western society, often serving to provide legitimation for a multiplicity of agendas. For designers there are profound implications for ethical conduct attached to the veracity of stakeholder consultation from which major schemes are often born. Too often stakeholder analysis does not go far enough, restricted to accounts of the 'self-evident' or 'presenting' surface activity of individuals or groups. The paper develops a rationale for reflexivity in effective design research that remains alive to empirical realities, reflecting constantly upon the interplay between the actors in a particular stakeholder discourse. Objective stakeholder analysis is then discussed as a potential practical application of realist theory. This short paper makes a call for the evaluation of proposed design interventions based on a representation of stakeholders that recognizes the 'inconvenient' social realities as well as the purported technical rational arguments that, at the worst extreme, can be exploited as a tool to maintain hegemonic regimes. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]
ISSN:0022-2224