Within the literature on Systemic Operational Design, discourse is generally treated as a mechanical communicative process. The monograph presents alternative ways to consider discourse, the implications of this for theory of Systemic Operational Design; and how these alternatives can lead to a richer understanding of discourse's role in design. To answer this question, it conducts a structured inquiry into the nature of discourse from the perspectives of agency, narrative and artifact structure, and socio-cultural relationships. Agency in design is viewed from a linguistic anthropological...