Strategies for Design Management Education in Taiwan

Abstract

The vast majority of influential and renowned design management (DM) academic programs are found in North America and Europe, but rarely in Asia. Taiwan, the country of focus in this study, lacks educational programs that can support and transform the essence of design management. In recent years, however, the Taiwanese government has begun directing more funding and effort into cultivating cultural- creative industries, with the hope of applying and delivering DM in several domains successfully. Nonetheless, the gap between a theoretical understanding of DM and practical implementation of it remains clear, with the end result that, today, DM in Taiwan still faces many difficulties and obstacles which prevent the essence of DM being successfully accepted or applied at a national scale. The purpose of this paper is to propose a suitable strategy for promoting and improving DM as an academic field in Taiwan's higher educational system. Primary qualitative research methods such as Delphi interviews and case studies were conducted to collect material that is current and relevant to Taiwan. The findings discuss obstacles that DM faces in academia and the industry, as well as the link between industry and academia, and finally, a strategy to develop and improve design management courses.

Overall, it is argued that the future of DM is in the hands of design students, who possess the ability to bring about a meaningful and realistic integration of design thinking and business value that remains both practical and true to the essence of DM. Ideally, the stagnant situation in the Taiwanese design industry can be improved and reformed by those designers in the future as well as by raising awareness of DM in Taiwan.

Keywords: Design Management, Design Education, Taiwan higher education