Abstract
The strategy as practice perspective views strategy as something people ‘do’ rather than what organisations actually ‘have’. This exploratory paper argues that this approach will provide an opportunity for a more comprehensive and in-depth analysis of what actually takes place in the activity of design management. organisational settings. The paper reviews ‘practice turn’ concepts, with associated empirical research, as a potential foundation for the study of design management and then goes on to discuss boutique hotels as a ‘designerly’ phenomenon where design is seen as central to customer appeal. We discuss some initial findings from one boutique hotel company and outline a suggested research design going forward in order to gain an understanding of ‘design-in-practice’.