Herbert Alexander Simon was an American political scientist whose work also influenced the fields of computer science, economics, and cognitive psychology. His primary research interest was decision-making within organizations and he is best known for the theories of "bounded rationality" and "satisficing". He received the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 1978 and the Turing Award in computer science in 1975. His research was noted for its interdisciplinary nature and spanned across the fields of cognitive science, computer science, public administration, management, and political science. He was at Carnegie Mellon University for most of his career, from 1949 to 2001, where he helped found the Carnegie Mellon School of Computer Science, one of the first such departments in the world.
Action research is a philosophy and methodology of research generally applied in the social sciences. It seeks transformative change through the simultaneous process of taking action and doing research, which are linked together by critical reflection. Kurt Lewin, then a professor at MIT, first coined the term "action research" in 1944. In his 1946 paper "Action Research and Minority Problems" he described action research as "a comparative research on the conditions and effects of various forms of social action and research leading to social action" that uses "a spiral of steps, each of which is composed of a circle of planning, action and fact-finding about the result of the action".
David Cooperrider, is the Fairmount Minerals Chair and Professor of Social Entrepreneurship at the Weatherhead School of Management at Case Western Reserve University, and Faculty Director at the Center for Business as an Agent of World Benefit at Case.
Tacit knowledge or implicit knowledge—as opposed to formalized, codified or explicit knowledge—is knowledge that is difficult to express or extract; therefore it is more difficult to transfer to others by means of writing it down or verbalizing it. This can include motor skills, personal wisdom, experience, insight, and intuition.
Activity theory is an umbrella term for a line of eclectic social-sciences theories and research with its roots in the Soviet psychological activity theory pioneered by Sergei Rubinstein in the 1930s. It was later advocated for and popularized by Alexei Leont'ev. Some of the traces of the theory in its inception can also be found in a few works of Lev Vygotsky. These scholars sought to understand human activities as systemic and socially situated phenomena and to go beyond paradigms of reflexology and classical conditioning, psychoanalysis and behaviorism. It became one of the major psychological approaches in the former USSR, being widely used in both theoretical and applied psychology, and in education, professional training, ergonomics, social psychology and work psychology.
The Weatherhead School of Management is a private business school of Case Western Reserve University located in Cleveland, Ohio. Weatherhead offers programs concentrated in sustainability, design innovation, healthcare, organizational behavior, global entrepreneurship, and executive education. The school is named for benefactor and Weatherchem owner Albert J. Weatherhead III, and its principal facility is the Peter B. Lewis Building.
David Allen Kolb is an American educational theorist whose interests and publications focus on experiential learning, the individual and social change, career development, and executive and professional education. He is the founder and chairman of Experience Based Learning Systems, Inc. (EBLS), and an Emeritus Professor of Organizational Behavior in the Weatherhead School of Management, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio.
Gary Alan Fine is an American sociologist and author.
Design management is a field of inquiry that uses design, strategy, project management and supply chain techniques to control a creative process, support a culture of creativity, and build a structure and organization for design. The objective of design management is to develop and maintain an efficient business environment in which an organization can achieve its strategic and mission goals through design. Design management is a comprehensive activity at all levels of business, from the discovery phase to the execution phase. "Simply put, design management is the business side of design. Design management encompasses the ongoing processes, business decisions, and strategies that enable innovation and create effectively-designed products, services, communications, environments, and brands that enhance our quality of life and provide organizational success." The discipline of design management overlaps with marketing management, operations management, and strategic management.
Social learning is learning that takes place at a wider scale than individual or group learning, up to a societal scale, through social interaction between peers.
Social design is the application of design methodologies in order to tackle complex human issues, placing the social issues as the priority. Historically social design has been mindful of the designer's role and responsibility in society, and of the use of design processes to bring about social change. Social design as a discipline has been practiced primarily in two different models, as either the application of the human-centered design methodology in the social sector or governmental sector, or sometimes is synonymously practiced by designers who venture into social entrepreneurship.
A community of practice (CoP) is a group of people who "share a concern or a passion for something they do and learn how to do it better as they interact regularly". The concept was first proposed by cognitive anthropologist Jean Lave and educational theorist Etienne Wenger in their 1991 book Situated Learning. Wenger then significantly expanded on the concept in his 1998 book Communities of Practice.
Richard Eleftherios Boyatzis is a Greek-American organizational theorist and Distinguished University Professor in the Departments of Organizational Behavior, Psychology, and Cognitive Science at Case Western Reserve University, Adjunct Professor in People/Organizations at ESADE, as well as HR Horvitz Professor of Family Business. He is considered an expert in the field of emotional intelligence, behavior change, and competence.
Elwood F. "Ed" Holton III is the Jones S. Davis Distinguished Professor of Human Resource, Leadership, and Organization Development in the School of Human Resource Education and Workforce Development at Louisiana State University where he coordinates their B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. degree programs in Human Resource and Leadership Development.
Victor Margolin (1941–2019) was an American design historian, researcher and educator. He was a Professor of design history at the University of Illinois, Chicago, where he taught from 1982 until 2006. Margolin published widely and was the founding editor and co-editor of the academic design journal, Design Issues. A major work was his comprehensive World History of Design.
Cultural-historical activity theory (CHAT) is a theoretical framework which helps to understand and analyse the relationship between the human mind and activity. It traces its origins to the founders of the cultural-historical school of Russian psychology L. S. Vygotsky and Aleksei N. Leontiev. Vygotsky's important insight into the dynamics of consciousness was that it is essentially subjective and shaped by the history of each individual's social and cultural experience. Especially since the 1990s, CHAT has attracted a growing interest among academics worldwide. Elsewhere CHAT has been defined as "a cross-disciplinary framework for studying how humans purposefully transform natural and social reality, including themselves, as an ongoing culturally and historically situated, materially and socially mediated process". Core ideas are: 1) humans act collectively, learn by doing, and communicate in and via their actions; 2) humans make, employ, and adapt tools of all kinds to learn and communicate; and 3) community is central to the process of making and interpreting meaning – and thus to all forms of learning, communicating, and acting.
Gary John Previts an American accountant, is a Distinguished University Professor Emeritus at Case Western Reserve University. From 1979 to June 30, 2023 he was Professor of Accountancy in the Weatherhead School of Management teaching undergraduate, masters, and doctoral courses. He is known for his work on the history of the theory and practice of accountancy.
Raymond L. Ison is an Australian-British cybernetician, systems scholar/scientist, and Professor of Systems at the Open University in the UK. He is currently President of the International Federation for Systems Research (IFSR). He was also Professor Systems for Sustainability at Monash University, and fellow at the Centre for Policy Development, and President of the International Society for the Systems Sciences in the year 2014-15. He is known for his work on systems praxeology within rural development, sustainable management, systemic governance and the design and enactment of learning systems.
Design studies can refer to any design-oriented studies but is more formally an academic discipline or field of study that pursues, through both theoretical and practical modes of inquiry, a critical understanding of design practice and its effects in society.
Cheryl Buckley is a British design historian whose research has focused on feminist approaches to design history. She has published on British ceramic design and fashion. Her works include the influential article "Made in Patriarchy: Toward a Feminist Analysis of Women and Design" (1986) and the books Potters and Paintresses (1990) and Designing Modern Britain (2007). She was professor of fashion and design history at the University of Brighton from 2013-2021, and was previously professor of design history at Northumbria University. In 2021, she was made Professor Emerita at the University of Brighton.
