Design studies researchers often agree on the importance of the first stage of the design process and the prominence of the architect and client relationship within this stage.Yet little seems to be known about the early interactions of architect and client.There is also no agreement on which stage is the first in the design process.Some refer to the stages prior to design development as ;;predesign”.But what is predesign if design takes place whenever someone ;;makes plans about the future environment” (Cuff 1991, 61).This dissertation poses the question: how is organizational culture manifested and what cultural factors affect firms through the client engagement process?This question defines culture as a pattern of basic assumptions that a group developed in coping with problems that have worked well enough to be valid and taught to others through socialization (Schein 1984).It also adopts the term ;;client engagement” from marketing, where customers are more prevalent than clients and customer engagement is defined as ;;psychological process that models the underlying mechanisms by which customer loyalty forms for new customers of a service brand, as well as the mechanisms by which loyalty may be maintained for repeat-purchase customers of a service brand” (Bowden 2009, 65).Qualitative research methods with ethnographic and case study tactics were used to answer this primary research question.Over a total of nine months, the researcher conducted ethnographic observations at three large (over 50 employees) Michigan-based architecture firms that competed with each other for workplace clients.While at these firms, field notes were taken, ten face-to-face interviews were conducted, a total of 1,112 documents, and 779 hours of audio recordings were collected.Audio recordings were made of meetings internal to the architecture firms as well as with employees of client companies and others in the building industry.This fieldwork draws on literature from different fields: design studies for architects and facility management for clients.In addition to the psychological, there is also a technical process of client engagement.The technical process includes the names and descriptions of each stage that the architect and client encounter.Architects begin this process with strategic planning while clients begin with the formation of an idea that change needs to happen.The technical client engagement process ends with what architects call ;;programming”, a confusing term since it is also used by clients.Documents collected from both clients and architects show that this process is primarily motivated by money, observations show that it is more commonly motivated by what organizational studies researchers call positive connections.These are connections that lead ;;to feelings of inclusion, a felt sense of being important to others, experienced mutual benefit, and shared emotions” (Baker and Dutton 2007, 10).Studies have shown that positive connections lead to greater comprehensions by listeners (Krauss and Fussell 1991), a decrease in interpersonal conflict (Williams 2011), healthy team functioning (Baker and Dutton 2007), cooperation (Cooper and Sosik 2011; Rogerson-Revell 2007), and increase business profits (Spreitzer and Cameron 2012).This dissertation suggests that such findings are also true for positive connections between architects and clients.The contributions of this dissertation cover many fields; therefore, the primary limitations are a matter of depth.Future research could be conducted with smaller firms, more firms, other building typologies, or from the perspective of the client.
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An Ethnography of Three Michigan Architecture Firms: The Effect of Organizational Culture on Workplace Client Engagement
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