Abstract
Participatory design, originally rooted in Scandinavian labour movements of the 1970s, has historically sought to democrat ise decision-making by empowering workers. While widely applied in civic and technological domains, its potential to transform internal organisational dynamics is less understood. This paper explores how participatory design approaches can function as a driver of organisational innovation and cultural change within a large-scale, hierarchical corporation. Focusing on the East Japan Railway Company (JR East), Japan’s largest railway service provider, this study examines efforts to involve frontline employees in broader planning and project work, as part of a shift toward decentralised, people-oriented management. Drawing on 16 semi-structured interviews with JR East staff, the paper investigates how participatory initiatives are being adapted to fit the cultural and institutional context of a Japanese public-facing company. Findings reveal how participatory initiatives enable mutual learning, collaborative decision-making, and increased employee engagement, while also surfacing tensions between democratic aspirations and entrenched structures. The paper proposes a four-part action model for democrat ising organisations through participatory design thinking, illustrating how such approaches can reshape power relations and organisational cultures over time. This research contributes to the evolving discourse on design thinking by demonstrating its relevance beyond product or service innovation, towards internal, systemic transformation. By bridging design, organisational studies, and labour discourse, it highlights how design thinking can be cultivated as a mindset across diverse institutional contexts, advancing both theoretical and practical understanding of its interdisciplinary potential in an era of rapid societal change.
Keywords
Participatory design; Organisational transformation; Frontline engagement
DOI
https://doi.org/10.21606/iasdr.2025.847
Citation
Satoko, S.(2025) Designing Workplace Democracy: Frontline Participation and Organisational Change at JR East, in Chang, C.-Y., and Hsu, Y. (eds.), IASDR 2025: Design Next, 02-05 December, Taiwan. https://doi.org/10.21606/iasdr.2025.847
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Conference Track
Track 5 - Design Thinking
Designing Workplace Democracy: Frontline Participation and Organisational Change at JR East
Participatory design, originally rooted in Scandinavian labour movements of the 1970s, has historically sought to democrat ise decision-making by empowering workers. While widely applied in civic and technological domains, its potential to transform internal organisational dynamics is less understood. This paper explores how participatory design approaches can function as a driver of organisational innovation and cultural change within a large-scale, hierarchical corporation. Focusing on the East Japan Railway Company (JR East), Japan’s largest railway service provider, this study examines efforts to involve frontline employees in broader planning and project work, as part of a shift toward decentralised, people-oriented management. Drawing on 16 semi-structured interviews with JR East staff, the paper investigates how participatory initiatives are being adapted to fit the cultural and institutional context of a Japanese public-facing company. Findings reveal how participatory initiatives enable mutual learning, collaborative decision-making, and increased employee engagement, while also surfacing tensions between democratic aspirations and entrenched structures. The paper proposes a four-part action model for democrat ising organisations through participatory design thinking, illustrating how such approaches can reshape power relations and organisational cultures over time. This research contributes to the evolving discourse on design thinking by demonstrating its relevance beyond product or service innovation, towards internal, systemic transformation. By bridging design, organisational studies, and labour discourse, it highlights how design thinking can be cultivated as a mindset across diverse institutional contexts, advancing both theoretical and practical understanding of its interdisciplinary potential in an era of rapid societal change.