This article explores how junior design professionals cope with value-based conflicts. We interviewed 22 design professionals about past and current value-based conflicts and the coping strategies adopted. Applying a grounded theory approach, we identified 11 types of coping strategies employed by junior design professionals. Our findings allowed us to clarify the nature of the coping process and localise value-based conflicts in the process of collaborative practice. During the coping process, professionals learn how to handle value-based conflicts through emotional release, developing a broader action repertoire, and engaging in timely action. We also identified transitions between specific coping strategies as junior designers learned from past conflicts and developed as a professional.

Junior designers are not trained to cope with critical situations and conflict at work. Most design schools do not educate their design students to prepare them for (potential) conflict. As a result, junior designers often do not have conflict-handling skills to handle critical situations and conflicts. While some tools and methods exist to help them make responsible design choices, these often address value differences underlying (potential) conflict without taking the perspective of the designer, and thus without supporting young designers to start by reflecting on their own intrinsic values. The aim of this study is to find a way to help junior designers to reflect effectively on critical situations, thereby improving their conflict-handling skills. Data was collected through four steps in an action research. Researchers collaborated with an identity programme for junior design professionals. Insights from try-outs and small interventions were transferred into design requirements for an approach to educate and facilitate junior design professionals to reflect more effectively on critical situations.