Sharing the vision: representing the matters of concern for design-led fledgling companies in Scotland

Design is being performed on an ever-increasing spectrum of complex practices arising in response to emerging markets and technologies, co-design, digital interaction, service design and cultures of innovation. This emerging notion of design has led to an expansive array of collaborative and facilitation skills to demonstrate and share how such methods can shape innovation. The meaning of these design things in practice can't be taken for granted as matters of fact, which raises a key challenge for design to represent its role through the contradictory nature of matters of concern. This paper explores an innovative, object-oriented approach within the field of design research, visually combining an actor-network theory framework with situational analysis, to report on the role of design for fledgling companies in Scotland, established and funded through the knowledge exchange hub Design in Action (DiA). Key findings and visual maps are presented from reflective discussions with actors from a selection of the businesses within DiA's portfolio. The suggestion is that any notions of strategic value, of engendering meaningful change, of sharing the vision of design, through design things, should be grounded in the reflexive interpretations of matters of concern that emerge.

Does a peer model’s task proficiency influence children’s solution choice and innovation?

The current study investigated whether 4- to 6-year-old children’s task solution choice was influenced by the past proficiency of familiar peer models and the children’s personal prior task experience. Peer past proficiency was established through behavioral assessments of interactions with novel tasks alongside peer and teacher predictions of each child’s proficiency. Based on these assessments, one peer model with high past proficiency and one age-, sex-, dominance-, and popularity-matched peer model with lower past proficiency were trained to remove a capsule using alternative solutions from a three-solution artificial fruit task. Video demonstrations of the models were shown to children after they had either a personal successful interaction or no interaction with the task. In general, there was not a strong bias toward the high past-proficiency model, perhaps due to a motivation to acquire multiple methods and the salience of other transmission biases. However, there was some evidence of a model-based past-proficiency bias; when the high past-proficiency peer matched the participants’ original solution, there was increased use of that solution, whereas if the high past-proficiency peer demonstrated an alternative solution, there was increased use of the alternative social solution and novel solutions. Thus, model proficiency influenced innovation.