Contemporary models of design research design research as an interplay with world successful economic models the jobsism

Proceedings of Insight 2015 Design Research Symposium Bangalore India
CONTEMPORARY MODELS OF DESIGN RESEARCH
Design Research As An Interplay With World Successful
Economic Models: the “Jobsism”
Nabil EL HILALI
ESCA Business School Casablanca

ABSTRACT

If we agree that design research issues impacts the economic world through innovative outputs. If we agree that
institutionalized main economic models such Taylorism, Fordism and Toyotism transformed the world economy
by specific design research investigations, it’s relevant to observe that economic performance validates
irremediably to stakeholders some design investigation issues. This research argues that Apple through
institutionalisation theory constitutes the fourth economic model since toyotism and it’s a bias to consider this
company as a common “case study” since Apple is performing his best financial performances nevertheless a
significant economic crisis. Under this purpose, it’s possible to characterize Apple and Steve Jobs by “Applism”
and “Jobsism” neologism to specify what erects a new economic model succeeding the so called institutionalized
Taylorism, Fordism and Toyotism. Related then to design research issues, design acts as the spinal dorsal that
constitutes a new paradigm for one company success and significant contemporary economic model for design
research.
Corresponding Author: nabil.elhilali@gmail.com

KEYWORDS
Design management, Design research, Economic models, Apple, Fordism, Toyotism

INTRODUCTION
It’s relevant to observe today that design research issues impacts the economic world through
innovative outputs. When the question of design research as a synthesis leading to design intent is
highlighted, it’s significant to understand in academic and professional way what already
constitutes successful design research investigations as economic success validate for stakeholders
some design research issues.
On this basis, research on the main economic productive models demonstrates that design issues
are central1: Frederick W. Taylor as an engineer shows to the world that implementing new
designed tools and processes leads to a new economic model. Later Henry Ford, through a new
design applied to engineering tools, plant processes and products, generates a successful new
productive model that becomes the Fordism. Years later, worldwide companies affected by the
seventies oil chock discovers that Toyota is not suffering thanks to a specific productive model
driven by a new design tools and processes. Taïchi Ohno model becomes then Toyotism.
In a similar way currently, when the world is going through the worst economic crisis since 1929
great depression, it’s possible to observe a fact: one company is not harmed by the crisis at all. More
than that, this firm called Apple, performs his best financial performance, standing by market

capitalization at the top of worldwide companies2. Additionally, the Boston consulting annual report
crowns Apple as the most innovative company in the world for ten years up today3.
Then, since designers, students, journalists, managers and academics (Verganti4; Christensen5),
refers to this company, there is no doubt that in reference to institutionalisation theory upon Scott6
and Dimagio & Powell7, the process of Apple institutionalisation as a new economic model is already
initiated.

METHODOLOGY
To investigate the issue, we made a qualitative approach focused upon Barthes8 narrative
methodology investigation. Related to this idea, we choose to focus on a Steve jobs authorized
biography. More than an interview, biography or authorized biography is a significant data as the
author expresses and assumes his point of view by a deep reflexion9
In this context what gives more weightiness to the cited biography lies in the fact that it was written
under Job’s request by William Isaacson: a skilled journalist and biographer at a dramatic specific
moment: “ He had called me right before he was going to be operated on for cancer (...) I decided
then to write this book. Jobs surprised me by readily acknowledging that he would have no control
over it or even the right to see it in advance.”10
In other words, more than authorized biography, the reader is here in front of kind of will, dictated
by a man aware of his approaching death and convinced by having played a historical and
significant role in one of the most valuable worldwide company. Based on more than forty
interviews with Jobs conducted over two years in addition to interviews with more than one
hundred stakeholders including family, friends, colleagues and Even competitors, Steve Jobs
biography is a significant access to reveal in an academic and practical way what could constitutes
jobsism thinking as the fourth economic model.

RESEARCH FINDINGS
DESIGN LEADERSHIP ROOTS
When referring to design in his interaction with management and economy, the main literature
Mozota11; Bruce & Cooper12; Best13refers to design through an idea of strategic implementation or
taxonomies showing the level of design integration within a firm14 If we stop by the metaphor used,
it means that design by a specific action or silent design15 is implemented at a different levels
balancing from novice approach to strategic approach.
Related to Apple then, the first finding demonstrates that Design issue at Apple is a kind of a specific
molecule encoding the company at D.N.A. level before his birth. Steve Jobs here is connected to
design thinking since his childhood through his father: “ I thought my dad’s sense of design was
pretty good because he knew how to build anything. If we needed a cabinet, he would build it. When
he built our fence, he gave me a hammer so I could work with him.10”
Craftsmanship about home improvement and cars restoration connects Steve Jobs with car design
specifications in mechanical engineering and car lines. To complete the initiation on design, Steve
jobs neighbourhood architect cultivates some issues on design philosophy:
“ Eichler did a great thing, his houses were smart and cheap and good. They brought clean design
and simple taste to lower-income people. They had awesome little features, like radiant heating in
the floors. You put carpet on them, and we had nice toasty floors when we were kids”10
Steve Jobs here develops a sense of design research conducting him to measure specific issues as
simplicity in design, pricing and function. Later, he becomes aware about his appetency to
understand art. Therefore, when he took the decision to drop the college and to choose a course by

himself, instead of following the standard student curriculum, his choice was directed not to
business, engineering or management science but at art calligraphy:
“I learned about serif and sans serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different
letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical,
artistically subtle in a way that science can’t capture, and I found it fascinating”10
Calligraphy here as a kind of mix between art, search for beauty and science rigor shapes Jobs
sensitivity to design at the intersection of art and technology:
I always thought of myself as a humanities person as a kid, but I liked electronics (...) Then I read
something that one of my heroes, Edwin Land of Polaroid, said about the importance of people who
could stand at the intersection of humanities and sciences, and I decided that’s what I wanted to
do10
Steve Jobs here states his admiration for the Polaroid designer and the fact that the latter stands
behind art and technology. Related to this idea, Krippendorf states in this context that: “Design was
born into an ambiguous relationship with aesthetics. Traditionally design is taught as an applied art,
design always had one foot in the arts and the other in technology” 16
This fact is deeply significant as it means that an early connection to design shapes Steve Jobs design
philosophy. The man who will create Apple is initiated here to design environment, architecture
design, product design, engineering design at the intersection of art and technology.
Later on one on his a famous keynotes, he will highlights this fact by verb and visual semiotics
assessing that "It’s in Apple's DNA that technology alone is not enough, it's technology married with
liberal arts, married with the humanities, that yields us the result that makes our heart sing”10
Design roots her appears prior to the establishment of the company, which makes someway the
neologism “Jobsism” prior to “Applism”. Design then emerges as embedded in Jobs self construction.

Figure 1 Technology and liberal arts intersection semiotics

DESIGN PHILOSOPHY RESEARCH:
A personal design philosophy and vision will hatch then. Design history fundamentals with a clear reference
to Bauhaus design philosophy is integrated. Steve Jobs at this moment is open to design issues by attending
design institutional conferences: “I had come to revere the Italian designers, just like the kid in Breaking Away
reveres the Italian bikers (...) so it was an amazing inspiration”. He assumes there publicly in International
Aspen Design conference his passion for design and proximity to Bauhaus philosophy. Isaacson states on that
in these terms: “In Aspen he was exposed to the spare and functional design philosophy of the Bauhaus
movement, which was enshrined by Herbert Bayer in the buildings, living suites, sans serif font typography,
and furniture on the Aspen Institute campus. Like his mentors Walter Gropius and Ludwig Mies Van Der Rohe,
Bayer believed that there should be no distinction between fine art and applied industrial design”10
What should be highlighted here lies in the fact that to shape his own design philosophy, Jobs will pass
through a specific criticism oriented toward a Corporate Sony design philosophy:
“The current wave of industrial design is Sony’s high-tech look, which is gunmetal gray, maybe paint it black,
do weird stuff to it, (...) It’s easy to do that. But it’s not great. (...) What we’re going to do is make the products
high-tech, and we’re going to package them cleanly so that you know they’re high-tech. We will fit them in a
small package, and then we can make them beautiful and white, just like Braun does with its electronics. » (...)
We will make them bright and pure and honest about being high-tech, rather than a heavy industrial look of
black, black, black, black, like Sony.” 10
By the way, it’s important to mention here that Sony gets the right to get his own design philosophy and this is
what the company did. But the most significant fact is that the critics addressed to one competitor are
constructed on design philosophy background. Steve Jobs has always shown respect to this specific company
by inviting once Sony C.E.O. to share one of his keynotes. He is not criticizing the company as a competitor but
he’s criticizing Sony Design philosophy vision under design knowledge research. He opposes his own design
philosophy to the Sony one and defines by the way what kind of design Apple should embrace.
Furthermore, Jobs appears here familiar with design issues at a very deep level. In design conference
mentioned above, he gets in touch with May Lin, the Washington D.C. Vietnam Veterans Memorial designer
who stated that Steve Jobs at that moment « had a Richard Sapper lamp, which he admired, and he also liked
the furniture of Charles and Ray Eames and the Braun products of Dieter Rams »10
On the basis of this design background structured on personal appetence to art, specific design products,
design history and the main skilful designers, Steve Jobs will draw and shape then what look likes an accurate
design principles synthesized on four points:

SIMPLICITY:

By approaching Asian Buddhism philosophy on his link to the Zen, Steve Jobs attested in his own
words that “Zen has been a deep influence in my life ever since”10 From there, he will develop a
specific link to the aesthetic remaining from it:
“I have always found Buddhism, Japanese Zen Buddhism in particular, to be aesthetically sublime,”
(...) “the most sublime thing I’ve ever seen are the gardens around Kyoto. I’m deeply moved by what
that culture has produced, and it’s directly from Zen Buddhism.” 10
His philosophy approach to Zen will erect the main design principle which is simplicity adopted
earlier as the young Steve Jobs gets his first job in Atari company. The simplicity embedded in the
games attracted him:
“He intuitively appreciated the simplicity of Atari’s games. They came with no manual and needed to
be uncomplicated enough that a stoned freshman could figure them out. The only instructions for
Atari’s Star Trek game were “1. Insert quarter. 2. Avoid Klingons.” 10
Simplicity then would become a strong concept and this is what fits with Steve Jobs announcement
in Aspen Conference: “so that’s our approach. Very simple, and we’re really shooting for Museum of
Modern Art quality. The way we’re running the company, the product design, the advertising, it all
comes down to this: Let’s make it simple. Really simple.” 10 The first Apple marketing brochure
proclaims then “Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.”10 This idea will undeniably define a sense
of uncommon research for perfection in order to reach a pure sense of perfect beauty.


PERFECTION:

To attain the simplicity discussed above a unique philosophy for pursuing the perfection is defining
jobsism approach to design. Perfectionism should be understood here as a kind of religion
outstanding any other considerations and especially within the business constraints. On the name of
the father, Jobs was exposed to an idea of perfection embedded in craft thinking. Steve Jobs here
“recalled a lesson that his father implanted deeply in him. It was important, his father said, to craft
the backs of cabinets and fences properly, even though they were hidden. He loved doing things
right. He even cared about the look of the parts you couldn’t see.”10 This research for perfection will
attain in a holistic way anything related to the company. The computer unseen parts were designed
upon this specific principle, Isaacson relates this story in these terms:
He scrutinized the printed circuit board that would hold the chips and other components deep
inside the Macintosh. No consumer would ever see it, but Jobs began critiquing it on aesthetic
grounds: “That part’s really pretty,” he said. “But look at the memory chips. That’s ugly. The lines are
too close together.” One of the new engineers interrupted and asked why it mattered. The only thing
that’s important is how well it works. Nobody is going to see the PC board.” Jobs reacted typically. “I
want it to be as beautiful as possible, even if it’s inside the box. A great carpenter isn’t going to use
lousy wood for the back of a cabinet, even though nobody’s going to see it.”10
Perfection is here drawn in holistic way touching anything coming out of the company hardware or
software, marketing brochures or advertising such the famous 1984 advertising launching the
Apple II.
To illustrate how the perfection is pursued at an astonishing level, let’s see how a colour choice was
made. To Isaacson a former engineer narrates the story: “The Pantone company, which Apple used
to specify colours for its plastic, had more than two thousand shades of beige. None of them were
good enough for Steve (...) He wanted to create a different shade...”10 Concerning the factory where
products were made, he asked to paint them with a pure white: “ When asked about his obsessive
concern over the look of the factory, Jobs said it was a way to ensure a passion for perfection”10
In the same context even the packaging fits the same perfection principle much to the annoyance of
collaborators: “ He got the guys to redo it fifty times,” (...)“It was going to be thrown in the trash as
soon as the consumer opened it, but he was obsessed by how it looked (...) money was being spent
on expensive packaging while they were trying to save money on the memory chips.”10 Pushing the
perfection at an incredible point construct here one of jobsism design philosophy implemented
deeply within the company culture.

FOCUS:

But to attain simplicity and perfection, Jobs highlights one idea coming out directly from his Zen
philosophy, which appears to be a deep concentration focus. Isaacson relates that in these terms:
“Jobs’s intensity was also evident in his ability to focus. He would set priorities, aim his laser
attention on them, and filter out distractions. (...) He made devices simpler by eliminating buttons,
software simpler by eliminating features, and interfaces simpler by eliminating options. He
attributed his ability to focus and his love of simplicity to his Zen training. It honed his appreciation
for intuition, showed him how to filter out anything that was distracting or unnecessary, and
nurtured in him an aesthetic based on minimalism”10
Focus philosophy remains then a critical principle that he implemented deeply within Apple
management attesting by this way as a manager that “Deciding what not to do is as important as
deciding what to do (...) that’s true for companies, and it’s true for products.”10
In this context it’s important to recall that when Steve Jobs took over Apple to save it, he found the
company working on too much products as a dozen versions of Macintosh for example. According to

Isaacson and the observers10, he saved the company after his come back through this focus
principle. He implements that by a drawing a matrix with four quadrants Consumer / Pros and
Desktop / Portable and asked his team to focus on four products, one for each quadrant10
The ability to focus personally and collectively appears here as an important principle interacting
with the others and the one that fits closely with the intuition principle.

INTUITION:

Grounded in Zen Buddhism, improved in contact with Indian culture during his youth trips and
related to simplicity, intuition become an important principle for Steve Jobs to shape his design
philosophy: “I began to realize that an intuitive understanding and consciousness was more
significant than abstract thinking and intellectual logical analysis”10 Intuition here is opposed to
logical analysis on the basis of lived experience in India:
“ The people in the Indian countryside don’t use their intellect like we do, they use their intuition
instead, and their intuition is far more developed than in the rest of the world. Intuition is a very
powerful thing, more powerful than intellect, in my opinion. That’s had a big impact on my work.
Western rational thought is not an innate human characteristic; it is learned and is the great
achievement of Western civilization. In the villages of India, they never learned it. They learned
something else, which is in some ways just as valuable but in other ways, is not. That’s the power of
intuition and experiential wisdom.”10
By recognizing the impact of intuition on Apple design, Steve Jobs is not handling intuition as a
dictionary word but as a meticulous method to reach and this is how he explains it to his
biographer:
“If you just sit and observe, you will see how restless your mind is. If you try to calm it, it only makes
it worse, but over time it does calm, and when it does, there’s room to hear more subtle things,
that’s when your intuition starts to blossom and you start to see things more clearly and be in the
present more. Your mind just slows down, and you see a tremendous expanse in the moment. You
see so much more than you could see before. It’s a discipline; you have to practice it.”10
As intuition remains a principle, he extent it toward his team and Tim Cook who would be Steve
Jobs Choice as C.E.O. was committed to this principle. “Even Tim Cook was an engineer by his
background, he was dedicated among other tasks to spread Steve Jobs intuition inside the company,
highlighting the fact that “Engineers are taught to make a decision analytically, but there are times
when relying on gut or intuition is most indispensable.”10
On this point, a question could rise up here by itself and it relates to the place of the main design
principle User centred Design. The response here lies in the idea that the principles shaping Apple
design philosophy remains natural to place the user on the centre. User centred design fits
completely with the principles of simplicity, focus, intuition and perfection.
For example, the hardware and software tightly woven together and closed to modifications that
distinguish Apple in the computer industry is done on simplicity principle. Isaacson said on that:
“one of his core principles was that hardware and software should be tightly integrated. He loved to
control all aspects of his life, and the only way to do that with computers was to take responsibility
for the user experience from end to end.”10
On another example, the graphic desktop metaphor is done under the same basis as Steve Jobs
expresses it here:
“People know how to deal with a desktop intuitively. If you walk into an office, there are papers on
the desk. The one on the top is the most important. People know how to switch priority. Part of the
reason we model our computers on metaphors like the desktop is that we can leverage this
experience people already have.” 10
Jobsism design philosophy appears then grounded in the Zen philosophy, shaped by the Bauhaus
philosophy in his link to minimalism and constructed on the basis on simplicity. On the other hand,

it appears that it is guided by an extreme and uncommon search for the perfection, through a focus
and intuition principles dealing in this way with anything that relates to Apple. These are under our
analysis the main ideas that construct Jobsism design philosophy. From the point highlighted here,
jobsism thinking ensued a specific design management in his link to strategic resources and the way
to deal with design, engineering and marketing.

DESIGN MANAGEMENT AND STRATEGIC RESSOURCES:

The first asset in design in his link to business issues is constructed for Steve Jobs under human
resources strategic values. What appears then, as the principal human value within the Jobsism is
the designer. In this context, it was critical to Steve jobs not only to hire a designer but the best one
among them, the biographer relates this story in these terms:
“He set up a contest to choose a world-class designer who would be for Apple what Dieter Rams was
for Braun. (...) The winner was Hartmut Esslinger, a German designer who was responsible for the
look of Sony’s Trinitron televisions. Jobs flew to the Black Forest region of Bavaria to meet him (...)
Even though he was German, Esslinger proposed that there should be a “born-in-America gene for
Apple’s DNA” that would produce a “California global” look, inspired by “Hollywood and music, a bit
of rebellion, and natural sex appeal.”10
As one can observe it in this story, in order to hire the designer he wanted, he accepted as a silicon
valley top manager star to flew overseas, to get in touch with the designer he wanted to hire, which
is an evident sign of respect. Once there, he gets in deep discussion about the design philosophy that
should be adopted in Apple from a German designer perspective. In another circumstance, after
launching his second company Next, to get a corporate logo, he hired the most valuable logo
designer Paul Rand by offering him 100.000 $ in an uneasy circumstances as the latter was under
contract for IBM company and Jobs insistence was uncommon. Isaacson wrote on that: “after two
days, Rizzo (Ibm Vice president) concluded that it was futile to resist Jobs, and he gave permission
for Rand to do the work.”10
Later after getting back to Apple on a mission to save the company, one can observe that the first
and most valuable management action he cares about straight forward, was the designer
recruitment as the most valuable human resource. He get in touch quickly with worldwide
designers as Richard Sapper, IBM ThinkPad designer, Giorgetto Giugiaro, the Ferrari and Maserati
designer before he notices a talented and young designer who will become the company senior
design manager. As human resource, Jony Ive would constitute the most strategic one, more than
any other function within the company. Steve jobs enthrones him, among all Apple employees, for
the posterity in these words:
“The difference that Jony has made, not only at Apple but in the world, is huge. He is a wickedly
intelligent person in all ways. He understands business concepts, marketing concepts. He picks stuff
up just like that, click. He understands what we do at our core better than anyone. If I had a spiritual
partner at Apple, it’s Jony. Jony and I think up most of the products together and then pull others in
and say, “Hey, what do you think about this?” He gets the big picture as well as the most
infinitesimal details about each product. And he understands that Apple is a product company. He’s
not just a designer. That’s why he works directly for me. He has more operational power than
anyone else at Apple except me. There’s no one who can tell him what to do, or to butt out. That’s
the way I set it up.”10
Laurene Powell Jobs adds on this point that: “Jony had a special status, He would come by our house,
and our families became close. Steve is never intentionally wounding to him. Most people in Steve’s
life are replaceable. But not Jony.”10
The idea one should observe here in Jobsism thinking is that if it wasn’t the designer mentioned, an
other one would be tracked until filling the same specifications and being elevated at the same
status which is « spiritual partner ». In human resources management words, Steve Jobs shaped the

Apple design manager characteristics and filled the position by Jony Ive and the main characteristic
that fits Jony Ive with Steve jobs, lies in the fact that booth of them shares the same design
philosophy in his link to simplicity, perfection, intuition and focus.
Jony Ive and Steve Jobs improves theses principles in tune with each other and this is what comes
through Jony Ive in reference to the pursue of simplicity, perfection, intuition and focus:
“When visiting Kitchen supply store, Ive recalls that both of them picked up a knife as they are
focused on anything enhancing a good design, but both of them put it down intuitively in
disappointment because of tiny bit of glue between the handle and the blade that ruined for them
the design of the whole product. Ive said on that: “Steve and I care about things like that, which ruin
the purity and detract from the essence of something like a utensil, and we think alike about how
products should be made to look pure and seamless”10
Design leadership through the design manager function appears here as the main function among
others shaping by this fact a singular design management leadership taking over in this context two
main important functions: engineering and marketing.

DESIGN LEADERSHIP ON ENGINEERING: TURNING ENGINEERING TO ART AND ENGINEERS TO ARTISTS

What is particular in Jobsism thinking related to engineering dwells in the idea that engineering
design should be close to the art thinking rather than pure mechanical or technological issues.
Engineers in this perspective are managed in an artistic way. After convincing his engineers to work
on the visual beauty of unseen parts inside the computer, he made a ceremony for them where they
were invited to sign their work as if they were an artists, telling them that « Real artists sign their
work » 10 one engineer recalls here: “With moments like this, he got us seeing our work as art”10
Engineers then are extracted out of technical thinking to embrace design philosophy in his link to
art and beauty by following design thinking rather than engineering thinking, turning the balance
then to design rather than engineering in the product development process. And this idea is a design
management principle implemented by Steve Jobs in the company as soon as he came back to take it
over and this is how an Apple top manager related the story:
After he was forced out, the process at Apple reverted to being engineer-driven. “Before Steve came
back, engineers would say ‘Here are the guts’—processor, hard drive—and then it would go to the
designers to put it in a box,” said Apple’s marketing chief Phil Schiller. “When you do it that way, you
come up with awful products.” But when Jobs returned and forged his bond with Ive, the balance
was again tilted toward the designers. “Steve kept impressing on us that the design was integral to
what would make us great,” said Schiller. “Design once again dictated the engineering, not just vice
versa.”10
And as it was clear that engineering has to follow Apple design management, Steve Jobs forms a duo
with Jony getting as an intuitive principle that a good design could force engineering toward
superhuman competencies. IMac and IPod process design success, gave the certitude to them that
when engineers think about the impossibility of engineering product on the basis of what design
proposes, they have to push them to try10 Engineering then appears in jobsism thinking as a
resource pushed to art side with design leadership instead of the industrial and mechanical side.

DESIGN LEADERSHIP ON MARKETING: TURNING MARKETING TO SERVE DESIGN THINKING

Earlier in his carrier, Steve Jobs was exposed to Marketing thinking and adopted a specific one from
a mentor named Mark Markkula who defines “The Apple Marketing Philosophy” by three points:
empathy, as an intimate connection with customer feeling, focus as a concentration on unique
opportunities and the last one named « impute » by which he emphasized that opinion about a
company or product is semiotic signals conveyed.

What it is significant in these marketing principles are expressed by the idea that theses beliefs fits
totally with Steve Jobs design philosophy on the basis of empathy, perfection, focusing and intuition.
In this context, the marketing concept as is highlighted here is in tune with Steve jobs thinking
related to design. We can argue then, that if these marketing values were in conflict with Apple
design philosophy, they were not applied as we can observe it from Steve Jobs interaction with one
of the main marketing concepts related to market research.17
In Steve Jobs thinking, marketing research appears as an innovation killer, when asked by a
journalist what type of market research he developed to create the Macintosh, he responded to this
question on this terms: “Did Alexander Graham Bell do any market research before he invented the
telephone?” and to Isaacson he adds:
Some people say, “Give the customers what they want.” But that’s not my approach. Our job is to
figure out what they’re going to want before they do. I think Henry Ford once said, “If I’d asked
customers what they wanted, they would have told me a faster horse!” People don’t know what they
want until you show it to them. That’s why I never rely on market research. Our task is to read
things that are not yet on the page.”10
The belief expressed here related to marketing remains the idea that it’s impossible in Jobs thinking
to watch Marketing leading design in any manner, however by Isaacson statement, Apple develops
nevertheless a “modest product advances based on focus groups” 10
As one can observe it, marketing according to jobsism thinking, remains under design thinking
leadership.

Conclusion
Considering the huge success fitting Apple performance even in crisis times which triggers the start
of institutionalization process toward world stakeholders, it’s possible here to underline the idea
that the neologism “Jobsism” deserves to be mentioned as the fourth main productive model as it
was in the past for the Taylorism, Fordism and Toyotism.
Above all, in relation to contemporary models of design research, it appears that the main principle
relevant to jobsism thinking appears sculpted within a constructed and specific design philosophy.
This philosophy related to “Applism” is grounded in Zen Buddhism and developed on four
principles: Simplicity, Perfection, Focus and Intuition.
Design appears then as the spinal dorsal making this company successful encoding in this manner
his D.N.A., which deliver unique design leadership, transcending all other management functions by
putting design prior to engineering management or marketing management.
This idea remains here as a challenge in academic and practical way for marketing dogma, when one
could observe for example the weak place conferred to design management comparatively to the
place allowed to marketing management in business schools curriculum.
However, the main limit of the model lies in the fact that to apply jobsism model, it demands a
strong management changing paradigm driving one company to define a specific design philosophy.
In other words, it’s not sufficient for one manager to only be aware about design thanks to action
done by design consultancy or government organization to apply a new economic model.
The particularity of a successful jobsism model application implies that one C.E.O. should be
grounded firstly in design philosophy curriculum to shape a design philosophy vision grounded in
the culture of one company. In other hand, a skilled designer appears within apple model
institutionalisation as an actor with a heavy responsibility toward design dissemination for one
prosperous economy.

REFERENCES
1. El Hilali N.& Mathieu J.P. (2012), « Un risque intrinsèque: l’omniprésence du design dans les
principaux modèles productifs du capitalisme moderne » in Revue Française de gestion
industrielle. Vol.31.N°1
2. www.ft.com/intl/indepth/ft500
3. www.bcgperspectives.com/content/articles/innovation_growth_digital_economy_innovation_in
_2014
4. Verganti, R. (2013). Design driven innovation. Harvard Business Press.
5. Christensen, C. (2013). The innovator's dilemma. Harvard Business Review Press.
6. Scott, W. R. (1995). Institutions and organizations.
7. DiMaggio, P. J., & Powell, W. W. (1983). The iron cage revisited: Institutional isomorphism and
collective rationality in organizational fields. American sociological review, 147-160.
8. Barthes, R. (1966). Introduction à l'analyse structurale des récits. Communications, 8(1), 1-27.
9. Norman K. Denzin, & Yvonna S. Lincoln (Eds.). (2005). The Sage handbook of qualitative
research. Sage.
10. Isaacson, W. (2011). Steve Jobs, Simon & Shuster.
11. De Mozota, B. B. (2003). Design management: Allworth Press.
12. Bruce, M & Cooper, R. (1997) Marketing and design management. Thomson Business Press,
London
13. Best, K. (2006) Design Management: Managing Design Strategy, Process and Implementation.
14. Topalian A. ”Leading through design: How design professionals enhance their strategic role” in
Proceedings of 2nd Cambridge academic design management conference September 2013
15. Dumas, A., & Gorb, P. (1987). « Silent Design. » Design Studies, 18
16. Krippendorff, K. (2004) The Semantic Turn: a New Foundation for Design
17. Kotler, P., & Rath, G. A. (1984). « Design: a powerful but neglected strategic tool. Journal of
business strategy » 5(2), 16–21

Contemporary models of design research design research as an interplay with world successful economic models the jobsism

Recommended

Recommended

More Related Content

What's hot

What's hot (11)

Similar to Contemporary models of design research design research as an interplay with world successful economic models the jobsism

Similar to Contemporary models of design research design research as an interplay with world successful economic models the jobsism (20)

Recently uploaded

Recently uploaded (20)

Contemporary models of design research design research as an interplay with world successful economic models the jobsism