Using social network theory to elucidate the impact of diversity on the social processes in design

Engineering design is understood to be a social activity, and requires collaboration and negotiation with diverse groups of people. Group communication literature suggests that team member interactions and communication have a major impact on a team´s decision-making abilities. Furthermore, these interactions and decision-making processes are impacted by the diversity makeup of the team. In this study, we examine the ways in which communication and social processes relate to ethical issues and decisions, which we envision as interwoven throughout the design process and arise on a day-to-day basis in engineering design. Thus, this work-in-progress paper describes preliminary results about how diversity and ethics interact within engineering design contexts through the use of social network analysis.