This article identifies the emergent dynamics of Strategic Design Management initiation through the understanding of the underground development process of an in-house design activity within a non design-oriented firm. Through the notion of underground practices, we try to understand how new design practices can raise under the radars of the company. Complementarily, with the concept of emergent strategy-making -or strategizing, we try to identify how, in a learning dimension, the different levels of management of a company initiate Strategic Design Management and learn to coordinate these new practices with the historical ones. We adopted a qualitative design research through an empirical and longitudinal in-depth case-study. The results show a 5-steps underground process and the multilevel-management initiatives leading to Strategic Design Management.
