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Article Excerpt
Introduction
In recent years, the emergence of a so-called 'design economy' has garnered a great deal of attention in the media, as well as in academia (Molotch 1996; Gibney and Luscombe 2000; Hutton 2000; Scott 2000). Julier (2000, 1), for example, suggests that 'few industries in the West have grown in terms of economic presence and cultural import as design has in the past two decades'. Prominent industrial designers have become the objects of extensive interest, while consumers are being targeted with an increasing array of goods tied to processes of distinction (Bourdieu 1984). The U.S. mass market retailer, Target, has hired international designers such as Philippe Starck and Michael Graves to design housewares for them. In the UK, the Labour Government has accorded special priority to design and has engaged in the 'rebranding' of the nation as 'Creative Britain' or 'Cool Britannia' (McRobbie 1998). Design is also a key component in the rise of what commentators have variously called the 'information' or 'knowledge-based economy' or what Florida (2002) calls the 'creative economy'. Florida (2002) argues that creativity has surpassed traditional factors such as land and resources in bolstering competitive advantage.
This paper explores the importance of design to the Canadian furniture industry. Our research into the state of the Canadian furniture industry has led us to identify a weakness in design as one of the key problems confronting this sector. Until recently, Canadian manufacturers have adopted a 'low road' economic strategy, whereby companies compete mainly on the basis of price (Scott 1996). Rather than embracing a model of high value-added knowledge intensive production, producers have tended to rely on external sources, especially the U.S., for design inspiration (Industry Canada 2001, 2). This historical weakness in Canadian furniture manufacturing has left the industry vulnerable to the growing power of retailers who exert pressure on producers to lower profits. This phenomenon, alongside heightened international competition, currency fluctuations, and tariff reductions, has prompted instability in the sector.
Despite this overall pattern however, we discern a significant strategy divide in the Canadian industry, with a growing number of producers beginning to rework the configuration of their production chains in order to facilitate enhanced design. The presence of this group of firms indicates that the 'low-road' imagery is perhaps too unequivocal to capture current developments in the industry. While both low-end and design-oriented producers have been successful in exporting to the U.S. we argue that the long-term viability of the industry depends on an ability to rework creative networks and to invest in original and geographically distinct design.
Organized into six main parts, the paper begins by exploring the nature of design as an interactive process that takes place across a broader cultural field. The second section presents an overview of the structure, location, and external pressures confronting the Canadian household furniture industry in order to elucidate the context within which investments in design are made. The third section interrogates relationships between manufacturers and other actors within the commodity network in an effort to understand the design process and to identify the factors contributing to a lack of design intensity in the mass production segment of the industry. Finally, the corporate behaviour and network configurations of innovative producers are highlighted in order to suggest a way forward for the industry.
The paper draws upon an analysis of government statistics and commentaries on the industry found in trade journals, newspapers and market research reports. In addition, 90 interviews were conducted with Canadian furniture manufacturers, retailers, designers, educators, associations, magazines, consumers and union representatives. (1) While the larger project involves an examination of advertising, publicity and consumption practices, here the focus is on manufacturers and their relationships with other actors in shaping the form and style of products. (2)
Cultural-Products Industries and the Creative Process of Design
The approach taken in this paper draws upon the growing body of literature dealing with cultural-products industries (Pratt 1997; Hirsch 2000; Power 2002). The household furniture industry may be classified along with what Scott (1996a) describes as the craft, fashion and cultural-products industries, sectors which share a high semiotic and aesthetic content. Scott includes furniture, along with jewellery, as an example of a craft-based, but heavily design-intensive sector.
A number of general characteristics are associated with cultural-products industries. In particular, they are often oriented toward the production of small batches of products targeted at niche markets. Rapid fashion cycles make constant product differentiation a key element of competitive strategy. Firms in this sector tend to be small in size and labour intensive.
In addition, cultural-products industries are prone to high levels of geographical agglomeration, particularly in large urban areas. The importance of milieu reaches beyond classical agglomeration forces such as technical competencies of trade, to include social and cultural factors and habitus (Hutton 2000). Cultural industry workers require a continuous stream of 'inspiration' in order to innovate. Studies indicate that diverse urban environments--characterized by a range of cultures, architectural styles, classes, and economic activities--are best suited to the creative process (Florida 2002; Bain 2003).
Much attention has also been focussed on the cultural-economic systems characterizing these industries. These systems generally take the form of complex inter- and intra-firm networks in which many different hands and interests are brought to bear on products as they go through the process of conception and development (Scott 2000, 32). While traditional notions of creativity focus on the role of the 'star' designer or artist, writers on the sociology of art and sociology of science have been careful to point out the intensely socialized nature of all creative labour (Bourdieu 1993; Latour 1993, 1999). Bourdieu (1993, 261), for example, suggests that the meaning of an artwork is not generated by a single artist, but emerges from a broader artistic field. Within this field, a 'motley crew of interlopers' (Haraway 1997, 6) shape and unshape the meaning and form that cultural products take. Artistic work is influenced by the context in which it occurs. As Scott (2000) notes, the choice of viable topics for design or art works is socially given out of the conditions of practical and political life. Interpersonal norms, theories, and methods formed through a process of common socialization all impact upon the creative process. Consumers of the final product also play an important role in defining how creators conceive of their products. In addition, a range of intermediaries such as retailers, art galleries, and agents shape the final outcome (Scott 2000, 31-32). Seen in this light, an artwork is a 'joint creation,' a manifestation of the field as a whole, not the product of isolated individual artists (Bourdieu 1993, 37; see also Ley 2003).
Like other creative processes, design is a manifestation of social and cultural interactions, and is embedded in social structures. Design involves the creation of new products, or the refining of existing ones. According to the International Council of Societies of Industrial Design (ICSID), 'design is a creative activity whose aim is to establish the multifaceted qualities of objects, processes, services, and their systems in whole life-cycles. Therefore, design is the central factor of innovative humanization of technologies and the crucial factor of cultural and economic exchange' (ICSID 2005). Designers aim to improve the appearance, ease of use, quality, strength, comfort or safety of furniture and other products (Bumgardner et al. 2001). This process involves evaluating business needs, production processes, competitor information and market timing, as well as fashion, taste, aesthetics, human behaviour and cultural meanings (Bryson et al. 2005, 1). Design can aid a company in developing a corporate identity that will differentiate it from its competitors, forming an important part of the process of innovation in an era of post-Fordist production. As Scott (2000, 2) suggests, 'capitalism itself is moving into a phase in which the cultural forms and meanings of its outputs become critical if not dominating elements of productive strategy, and in which the realm of human culture as a whole is increasingly subject to commodification ..."
In shaping the material and aesthetic content of products, design exerts tremendous influence over how resources are used and how labour processes are configured, as well as affecting the formation of identities and the well-being of different social groups. (3) According to Attfield (2000, 12) design can be seen as 'things with attitude', created to fulfill a particular task, express identity, denote status or exercise social control. Design is therefore a hybrid activity, involving both technical and aesthetic judgments, as well as economic and cultural imperatives.
In order to understand the process of furniture design, it is necessary to interrogate the wider cultural field from which it emerges. Furniture design involves interaction between actors situated at a number of sites along a commodity chain or network, including manufacturers and their competitors, retailers, designers, consumers and marketers. Commodity chains can be defined as the 'network of labour and production processes whose end result is a finished commodity' (Hopkins and Wallerstein 1986, 159). This focus on commodity chains involves an examination of one commodity, and traces the production of different meanings along various sites in the network (Cook and Crang 1996; Hartwick 1998; Leslie and Reimer 1999; Robbins 1999; Le Heron et al. 2001; Hughes 2004; Hughes and Reimer 2004). There are a variety of approaches to examining the relationship between sites, and analyses have focussed on the flow of profit and value through chains, as well as the production of sign values, knowledges and meanings. It is not our aim to review this literature here (see Leslie and Reimer 1999; Hughes 2004; Hughes and Reimer 2004). Rather, we take from this literature an emphasis on the dynamic relationship between producers, retailers, designers and consumers, and the ways in which product knowledges and aesthetics are worked and reworked across a broader field.
In this paper, we focus on manufacturers as key coordinators of this creative process. Although there are examples of high-end boutiques, lifestyle merchandisers and retailers like IKEA who dictate design specifications to furniture producers in Canada, those cases are still quite rare. (4) For the most part, manufacturing is the site where various actors are drawn together in the design labour process.
An exploration of the broader field of relationships across a commodity network can help us to understand the interactions between manufacturers and other actors in the process of design, as well as the ways in which creative relationships may be impacted by vertical interactions between actors in the furniture chain. Attention is also paid to the circumstances in which firms are able to engage in processes of learning and industrial upgrading (Gereffi 1999; Bair and Gereffi 2001; Humphrey and Schmitz 2002; Smith 2003).
An investigation of furniture design also raises issues about how commodities are transformed materially and symbolically along a chain or network: 'a vital element in these chains of connection is the ability to read a continually changing market and to make this reading count across the chain of links' (Amin and Thrift 2004, xxv). Commodity network analyses have the advantage of moving analysis beyond compartmentalized understandings of economy and culture, production and consumption, and the material and symbolic, foregrounding the centrality of culture--meanings, creativity, aesthetics, images, designs--to competitive dynamics (Jackson 2002; Hughes and Reimer 2004).
Thus, design cannot be seen as an isolated sphere of activity. Rather, it emerges from a wider field of relationships and knowledges spanning an entire chain or network. Using a commodity network approach to examine design in the cut flower chain, for example, Hughes (2004, 223) argues that there is a complex circulation of knowledge and ideas centring on design between retailers, floristry experts, home furnishings designers, lifestyle magazines and consumers, such that it becomes difficult to 'establish any beginning and end points in the process of generating design-based knowledge'. Seen in this light then, furniture design can be conceptualized as a 'joint creation' of various actors in a broader cultural field involving multiple sites such as manufacturing, design, retailing, marketing and consumption. Rather than being defined by individual 'star' designers, design is a socially constructed and spatially embedded process.
Overview of the Household Furniture Industry in Canada
Canada is the second largest exporter of furniture in the world (Industry Canada 2002). Within the wider sector, this paper focuses on household furniture manufacturing which encompasses the manufacture of wooden furniture or case goods, upholstered furniture, metal and plastic furniture, and bedding (North American Industrial Classification System codes 337121, 337123, 337126, 337910) (Industry Canada 2001, 1). (5) The industry has enjoyed considerable success in recent years, particularly in exporting to the U.S. Since 1994, Canada has maintained a growing trade surplus in household furniture with the U.S. (Industry Canada 1999, 11) (Table 1). (6)
In terms of structure, the Canadian household furniture industry is highly fragmented, incorporating some 1,508 plants employing 39,438 people in 2001 (Industry Canada, 2004a, 1) (Table 2). While there are a few large firms, most are single-plant operations. The average plant employs only 52 people (Industry Canada 2004a, 4). Unlike other industrial sectors in Canada (such as the automobile industry), almost all firms are Canadian owned (Industry Canada 1996, 13). In addition, there is a strong tradition of family ownership that has kept companies private (Industry Canada 1996, 2) (Table 3). (7) Many factories have been started by Italian and German immigrants to Canada, illustrating how the historical development of the Canadian industry depended on localized capabilities imported from countries having a long regional advantage (Maskell and Malmberg...
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