Research on 'reaching a common ground amongst stakeholders' for social innovation in the public sector
in association with
Team:
Maria Buckenmayer, Malena Lopez Reyez
Year, Duration, Course:
2019, 20 weeks, SPD Research (TU Delft)
Mentors:
Mieke van der Bijl-Brouwer
Role:
Defining Research intent and proposal, Literature Review, Primary and Secondary research, Qualitative thematic data analysis, Sense-making, Design suggestions, Writing a research paper, Presenting findings, Making illustrations.
Project category / tags:
Research, Frame Creation, Human-centered design, Thematic analysis, Design with and within public sector, Transdisciplinary collaboration, Common ground amongst stakeholders
*Confidential Project*
Certain details and the final concept have been omitted due to the confidential nature of the project. Only the process followed during the project is outlined here. More details can be de discussed in person.
"Problem setting is a necessary
condition for problem solving” (Schön, 2005). The solutions / answers you get depend on the way one frames a question.
For complex societal problems and social innovation in the public sector, it is a must to frame the problem appropriately in order to affect change. Further, there ought to be a common ground and shared understanding amongst stakeholders of the problem at hand.
However, each stakeholder frames the problem based on their set of values and background; making it difficult to achieve a common ground.
This project explores how explicating each stakeholder's framing using an human-centered design approach can help in achieving the common ground.
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Context
Research Question
How do stakeholders dealing with complex societal problems in the public sector build up their own frames and what is the relationship between these frames?
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We answered our research question using a interpretative, within-case study (Zainal, 2007) approach, taking the Delft Inclusive Project as a case study. Stakeholders from the Municipality, Private sector developers, Citizens and Small businesses situated in the locality were interviewed to collect data. Archived documents, reports and previously conducted interviews were also used to gather the required data. Thematic analysis was carried out to analyse the data and identify patterns. Further a 'Horizontal and Vertical data analysis' method (developed by the team) was used to answer our research questions. Horizontal analysis involved looking for 'problem frames', influencing factors and other patterns for each stakeholder interviewed. Vertical analysis included comparing the 'problem frames', influencing factors and patterns derived of different stakeholders.
The resulting patterns and influencing factors were further analyzed to derive a set of recommendations about how the municipality and other stakeholders can reach a common ground by explicating their own problem frames. The case study and findings from the project were written into a research paper.
Results
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