Design Culture Perception: Diagnosis of Knowledge and Vision of Traditional and Innovative Industries in Portugal

This chapter focuses on how design culture is perceived in an industrial context, through the diagnosis tool Design Culture Ladder (DCL) in which the deliverable outcomes are provide both qualitative and quantitative data base. In a first phase, research based on the literature review (1) compared studies on the indices/paradigms of culture, culture evolution, design culture, and organizational/corporate culture, contextualized to the industry, (2) the analysis of indicators extracted from the paradigms, and (3) the triangulation of the dimensions found; in a second phase, empirical study applied in (4) interviews and (5) surveys—to 18 companies in traditional and innovative sectors, respectively from the footwear industry and the software industry in Portugal—along with a multidisciplinary framework of the companies’ employees; in a third phase, analysis of found data, such as (6) sub-categories, (7) frequency and metric analysis, (8) categories, and (9) main concepts; and in a last phase, (10) the analysis and comparision of quantitative data between the analysed industries. The results/findings of this chapter show that this diagnosis tool can be applied and be transversal to different industries in Portugal, provide comparative results and validate the questionnaire script of the DCL model.