Cultural Impact on Co-Design Team Communication in Distributed Bi-National Teams
DS 81: Proceedings of NordDesign 2014, Espoo, Finland 27-29th August 2014
Year: 2014
Editor: Miko Laakso, Kalevi Ekman
Author: Man, Jeff; Lu, Yuan; Brombacher, Aarnout; Ying, Fangtian
Series: NordDESIGN
Institution: 1: Eindhoven University of Technology, the Netherlands; 2: Zhejiang University, China
Section: Collaboration, communication and co-creation in design and development
Page(s): 243-251
ISBN: 978-1-904670-58-2
Abstract
This paper is designed to study the impact of cultural difference on co-design teamwork. The aim of this study is to explore the impact of supporting and hindering cultural factors on codesign teamwork in distributed bi-national teams from Netherland and China. In order to achieve the research objective, a bi-national co-design course was conducted by Dutch and Chinese design students, as a case study to investigate the impact of cultural difference on codesign teamwork. Due to impact of cultural difference in bi-national teams, design ideation and team communication were difficult but important for co-design teamwork. Based on the analysis and results of case study, it is necessary for designers to be aware of and make use of cultural difference for design ideation and team communication in distributed bi-national teams.
Keywords: Cultural difference, design teamwork, co-design