Toward design literacy in American management: A strategy for MBA programs

Beginning in the late 1980s, and then with increased velocity in the 1990s, design has gained importance as a core business strategy deployed to generate revenue and deliver profits. This can be seen in the performance of some of the last two decades' most successful new (and newly revived) brands, including Apple Computers, Ian Schraeger Hotels, Target, Chrysler, VW, Tiffany, Ralph Lauren, Calvin Klein, Donna Karan, and others.

But while design has become a key component of strategic business decisions, it has been remarkably and almost entirely ignored in graduate business education. Twenty-five years ago, Walter Hoving, then chairman of Tiffany & Co., called on the most influential designers, business leaders, and educators of his time to come to an understanding of their interdependence. To promote his vision that design is a field that has a less than obvious, but nonetheless direct, impact on a business's bottom line, Hoving organized a series of lectures at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Business. He hoped that these lectures, delivered by leading designers, as well as leaders in the areas of education and business, would "serve as an inspiration for business leaders, students, and all of us concerned with promoting the highest standards of design excellence:" As he expressed in his foreword to the collection of essays resulting from the Tiffany-Wharton Lecture Series, and also in the lecture that he himself delivered, American enterprise has suffered as a result of inattention to the quality of design and aesthetics in its endeavors.