Values as Generative Forces in Design

Purpose and Intended Audience: According to Parsons (1935), values can be understood as “the creative element in action in general, that element which is causally independent of the positivistic factors of heredity and environment” (1935: 306). Since Parson’s time, a wide range of research has helped to deepen this somewhat opaque insight (Fleischmann, 2014). We now have a burgeoning field dedicated to studying values in relation to technologies and design that has produced empirical studies by scholars such as Ahn et al. (2012) regarding the role that values play in attitudes toward creative remixing and Shilton (2013), who introduces the concept of value levers to show how values can enable new ways of looking at problems and creatively engendering solutions. However, it is also well established that different cultures and organizations prioritize creativity and creative work differently, indicating that an interrelationship between values and creativity may not be universal (Fleischmann et al., 2011; Hofstede, 2001; Schwartz, 2007; Sousa & Coelho, 2011). Hacker culture, for example, particularly esteems the link between values and creativity (Kelty, 2010), yet other studies indicate correlations between creativity and specific values (Dollinger et al., 2007; Kasof et al., 2007) or a relationship among values, creativity, and network structure (Zhou et al., 2009). While it is clear that the relationship between values and creativity is an important topic, there is still great potential to demonstrate the practical relevance of creativity to the study of values and design. With this workshop, we seek to bring together a community of researchers and information professionals interested in questions of values in design to open new avenues for discussion and future research in this area.