This study recognizes the public procurement of service design as a summary process in its own right and proposes to unravel the complexities involved. Yet, how information unfolds in the context of public procurement for service design remains to be explored in research. Through a thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006) of interviews, ethnographic observations and documents, this study identifies the key steps of enumeration in public procurement of service design and reveals the professional contexts of the professionals involved.
This study contributes to this literature by delving into the distinctive features of enumeration within public procurement of service design as one of the emerging phenomena in KIBS. Furthermore, the author conducted unstructured observation (Mulhall, 2003) in one of the offices of the consultancy, which helped to understand the real contexts of service design consultants in the work with public organizations. These discussions provided a rich description of the legal and organizational contexts of public procurement, as well as how service design is currently viewed in the Finnish public sector.
The analysis reveals that service planning procurement can take different forms in the Finnish public sector. In Finland, public procurement of service design is largely regulated by the Public Procurement and Concession Contracts Act of 2016, named. The variants presented above and their details show how flexible service design procurement can be in Finland.
As a result, many respondents felt that the current capacity for service design in the public sector is insufficient to meet growing demand and to make an impact with a long-term vision. As can be seen from the quote above, public sector organizations often pooled different sources of funding to finance a service design procurement. This phenomenon may not always present an ideal environment for collaboration with service design expertise.
The consultants have also discussed how service design projects for the public sector can give rise to greater uncertainty than for the commercial sector. The second answer is related to the ways in which public sector organizations often engage in service design expertise through framework agreements. In this way, service design consultants could pay more attention to the complex requirements of their public sector clients.
This is also because the briefing process in a service design contract is largely dictated by legal requirements and details drawn up by civil servants. The findings of this study and the practical responses above extend the use of "silent design", as the ways in which civil servants design the details of public procurement inadvertently shape the information and design practices of service design consultants. Service planning is carried out by different types of public organizations with multiple objectives.
For this purpose, the account of the different types of organizations in the public sector and the different intentions with purchasing service design was outside the scope of the study.
The topic guide for the interviews in the Consultancy
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this article. An initial analysis of partial data from this study was presented at the Design Research Society Conference as a positioning paper (Park-Lee & Person, 2018b). The author is indebted to Oscar Person of Aalto University for his guidance on the current article and to Eeva Julia Lehto for her research assistance.
This paper benefited from comments made by Jung-Joo Lee of the National University of Singapore and Paulo Roberto Nicoletti Dziobczenski of Aalto University on earlier drafts. The author is grateful to anonymous reviewers of DRS Conference and Design Studies for their valuable comments that helped to improve the paper.
An example of ethnographic field note from this study
A research diagram with an interviewee’s notes and scribble
The Design Exchange program was created by the strategic design unit of the Finnish innovation fund Sitra, better known as the Helsinki Design Lab. The foundation has granted grants of 50% of the salary to the designers to work in two municipalities and two ministries: Helsinki; Lahti; Ministry of Employment and the Economy; and the Ministry of the Environment (For more details, see: Design Exchange Programme, 2013). The designers' responsibilities included participating and coaching in ongoing projects in the cities, creating new initiatives that encourage citizen participation and communicating the value of engaging in design and holding hearings for all public servants who want it (For more details, see: Aalto, 2012).
Formed under the Finnish Immigration Service (Migri in Finnish), Inland is a "design and innovation laboratory" that promotes positive transformation in Migri and beyond through co-design and creation of cross-organizational projects (Mindset, 2017). Often referred to as SOTE (abbreviation of its Finnish name 'Sote-ja maakuntautuudis'), the reform involves a somewhat controversial political mandate pursued by four successive prime ministers that transfers health and social care responsibilities from the existing 295 municipalities to 18 elected regional authorities with a strong tendency towards public-private cooperation. It's all in a relationship: A comparative study of client-design consultant relationships.Design Studies e422. 1998). Managing design alliances: Sustainable competitive advantage.
Organizational design and change in the public sector. Journal of Design Management, 9(1), 85e97. 2013).Helsinki Design Laboratory.http://helsinkidesignla- b.org/dossiers/design-exchange.html. Creativity in the design process: Problem-solution coevolution. Design Studies e437. 2008).Qualitative methods in business research. Fragile interconnections: Challenges in inter-organizational service networks and the role of design. Design Magazine e268.
Design alliances: the hidden assets in strategic innovation management. The Design Journal, 1 (February), 24e40. Beyond specification: a study of interaction between architect and client. Design Studies e352. 2014). Leading Companies by Design: Why and How Business Leaders Invest in Design. Assessing the performance of styling activities: an interview study with industry professionals in style-sensitive companies.Design Studies, 42, 33e55.
The design brief as carrier of customer information during the building process. Design Studies e249. The Service Design Practice Guide (beta version). https://cio.go.jp/sites/default/les/uploads/documents/guidebook_servicedesign.pdf. 2013).The coding manual for qualitative researchers(2nd ed.). Transformative services and transformational design. 2015). Design for innovation in the UK public sector: Design strategies for paradigm shifts.
