“What is Design Worth?” Narrating the Assetization of Design
Abstract
This article explores how financial logics and investment rationalities are
intersecting with and shaping the expert discourse and practice of professional design.
It uses “assetization” as a conceptual category to make sense of recent efforts to account
for the value of design in financial terms. Specifically, the article provides a narrative semiotic analysis of a report on “The Business Value of Design” published by McKinsey
& Company, unfolding how design is valued in terms of its capacity to deliver future
earnings for shareholders, and thus made to acquire the asset form. The article
foregrounds how can the assetization of design be understood not only as evidence of
the gradual spread of financialized valuations, but also as an organizing act
underpinned by a script that activates characters and defines frames of action around
the use of design in firms. It shows how this script entangles the coordinated expansion
and monitoring of design activities within firms with the fervor for shareholder value
maximization and capital gains, drawing a convenient line of causation between them
as a near certainty. The article contributes to our understanding of how the cultural
condition that makes the spread of assetization possible is to an important extent
established in the ongoing and everyday work of striving to systematize and increase
creativity in organizations
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Date
2023Author
Navarro Aguiar, Ulises
Keywords
assetization
design
narrative
script
reports
organization
Publication type
article, peer reviewed scientific
Language
eng