Introduction

Designing is, obviously, a key activity in design-oriented problem solving. Therefore, in this chapter we provide some general design theory.

Designing in business and organizational field problem solving is an example of social system design: one designs actions or designs new roles, relations and processes. These are to be executed by people who operate in organizations in existing roles, relations and processes. For social system design, much can be learnt from material system design as it is carried out by engineers. There are many important similarities between social system and material system design. Therefore, Section 4.2 introduces general design theory as developed for material system design (for further details, see van Aken, 2005b). However, there are also fundamental differences between social and material system design. These derive largely from the way the design is realized, but this fundamental difference also reflects on the nature of the design to be made and on the way it is to be made. These issues are discussed in Section 4.3 on social system design. The chapter concludes with a discussion on the paradigmatic starting points involved in social system design.