Main contributions of design thinking to innovation

In order to better conceptualize DT, it is important to study the commonalities of the main contributions of DT in the literature. These commonalities and contributions that different scholars have on DT can be seen as the different dimensions of DT. Figure 5 indicates the most important commonalities, the relationships, or linkages that DT has in organizations.

32 Figure 5. The dimensions of design thinking

Customer centricity and market orientation

First, it seems that one of the driving forces of DT is the customer-centered take on everything. Customer or user is placed into the center from the start and is kept there throughout the process. Whatever DT is trying to accomplish, it relates to customers. As many researchers point out, the key insights always comes from the customer, what they either might want or must have. (e.g. Liedtka, 2015; Carlgren et al., 2016; Brown, 2008).

Problem solving

If the customer is the starting point of DT, what comes hand in hand with it is solving problems. Many researchers have highlighted that DT is useful when solving problems but the key is not just to solve existing problems but instead find the right problems and then the right solutions (Carlgren et al., 2016; Johansson-Sköldberg et al., 2013). Earlier in this chapter, it was pointed out how DT is more problem focused than solution focused and that the main argument was that by focusing on the problems of the users, either existing ones or more hidden problems, the customer-centeredness is taken into account. Even though problems are more in the center of DT, the solutions are also very important. It can be

33 reasoned that solutions cannot be excluded from problems and the other way around. In the core of DT, there is also experimentation as Carlgren et al. (2016) listed as one of the themes of DT. In addition, the diamond model (Nessler, 2016; Design Counsil, 2018) points out how the starting point of DT process, is in problem solving and defining.

Experimenting

Majority of the DT scholars have pointed out in one way or another that in order to truly see what customers think about, new ideas, solutions or innovations these must be tested with real customers and iterated (e.g. Carlgren et al., 2016; Brown, 2008; Liedtka, 2015). Thus, experimentation of all the different suggested solutions is listed as one of the dimensions.

Innovation and strategy

Although the definition of innovation is examined more closely in the following chapters, innovation needs to be included as an important part of DT due to the scope of this study, where the linkage of DT and IM is studied. Many researchers have pointed out how there is a lot of innovation potential in DT and many companies have thus implemented DT to their organizations (e.g. Carlgren et al., 2016; Carlgren et al., 2014; Liedtka, 2015; Furue and Washida, 2017). Strategy can be seen as a keen part of DT and thus as a dimension of it as well. This linkage between DT and strategy has been studied by Meyer (2015) and when stating that DT is an important tool in creating new business models, it is and has to be a strategic choice for companies.

Collaboration

Davis, Docherty, and Dowling (2016) argue DT to be about iterative, human-centered and co-creative way to support innovation. Co-creation and collaborative teams have been mentioned by other researchers as well (Liedtka, 2015, Johansson-Sköldberg et al., 2013;

Carlgren et al., 2016; Gruber et al, 2015). Collaboration as a key part of DT is arguably one of the strengths of the whole philosophy and this collaboration includes both the internal and external stakeholders. This is important because finding and developing solutions to customers’ problems or needs requires the best knowledge and all the important information from for example the companies’ existing processes or products.

34 Gruber et al. (2015) list in total 14 different characteristics or ways of working for DT. DT is in relation to conditioned inventiveness, human centered focus, environment-centered concern, ability to visualize, tempered optimism, bias for adaptivity, predisposition toward multifunctionality, systemic vision, view of the generalists, ability to use language as a tool, affinity for teamwork, facility for avoiding the necessity of choice, self-governing practicality and ability to work systematically with qualitative information (Gruber et al., 2015). These different characteristics can be linked to the dimensions presented above. For example multifunctionality and affinity to teamwork are linked to cooperation of multifunctional teams and conditioned inventiveness and ability to visualize are closely linked to innovation. In addition systemic vision and view of the generalists are linked to market orientation.

Figure 4 demonstrates these dimensions of DT presented and explained above. These dimensions have been chosen to be the most important ones to characterize the concept of DT for two reasons. First, majority of the literature reviewed on DT highlights these dimensions and describes DT through these dimensions. These dimensions can be seen as some sort of characteristics of DT the same way that one can characterize a person to be tall or short. Strategy, as a dimension of DT is somewhat more unclear than the other dimensions due to it not being mentioned clearly in the literature regarding DT. The context of this study itself indicates that successful innovation management is seen as a key to companies’ success and thus it has to be considered to be a strategic choice for companies to implement DT into IM. The second reason for why these dimensions of DT where chosen is that these dimensions can be clearly seen in practice in companies which have implemented DT into their organization. For example Apple and Amazon have both made the strategic decision to experiment, innovate, be market oriented and problem solving and collaborate through multifunctional teams. Does it then mean that these two companies have implemented DT?

If looking at these characteristics of DT and these companies’ ways of operating, then the answer is yes. Whether or not these companies state that they have implemented DT is another question and cannot be clearly stated due to differences in the way academia and practice understand the concept of DT. These dimensions of DT indicate that DT has a touch point with all these dimensions. It does not yet take into consideration the process or structure, in which these dimensions are linked to DT. Even though these different dimensions of DT indicate that, it has many different connections within organizations, DT

35 has not achieved a common level of understanding among scholars or in practice. These different viewpoints or paradoxes of DT will be discussed next.