Design Entrepreneurship in Innovation (original) (raw)

Meanings and Uses of Design for Innovation: Conversations with UK Companies

The Design Journal, 2021

In this paper we discuss how design can have different meanings and uses in practice and what of those are related to innovation processes. The paper looks at diverse theoretical stances in regard to the meaning of design. Later on, the paper describes data collected through in-depth interviews with fifteen UK companies in the manufacturing, engineering, transport, urban living and digital services areas. The findings inform our understanding about definitions and uses of design. In addition, we identify some of the difficulties companies experience in measuring the value and contributions of design, and illustrate alternative methods companies use for that purpose. The paper concludes with a synthesis of the findings from this research.

The Value of Design in Innovation: results from a survey within the UK Industry

The Design Journal, 2017

A renewed interest in the positive impact of design in industry during the last few years, especially regarding the measurement of that impact, has produced a number of studies and research in the field. All these studies have contributed significantly to increasing the acceptance of design in business, however it is still not totally clear what is the position of design within the business structure and its contributions to other functions in the organisation like innovation. In this paper we present the results of a National survey done in the UK between 2015 and 2016. The purpose of this paper is to provide academics, policy makers, and business support organisations with the insights from this study on the current use of design and potential relationship between design and innovation amongst UK firms today and to consider what this means for the future of design in business.

Design Capability for value creation

2014

Design is undergoing a moment of disruptive change/transformation: skills, education, and its link with innovation are evolving as fast as is the context of the socio-economical crisis. One of the fundamental issues to discuss and reflect upon to meaningfully direct the transformation at hand is the connection and role of design within the future of innovation. Reflecting on this, the paper looks at the capabilities of design to explore the role of design innovation in business and society (for example, production, distribution, public services, etc.). It proposes a discussion that could potentially contribute to provide wider evidences on the impact of design for growth and prosperity, arguing for a design thinking mindset, and design leadership stronger sector. Moreover, the paper proposes a model based on business narratives emerged through qualitative research that could help orienteer a wiser and wider development of design policies. The main question that the paper addresses is: which capabilities matter to give design the chance to contribute meaningfully to the innovation path, and to reinforce the key players in the socio-economical system (e.g. governments, intermediaries, businesses, universities, policymakers, and people)? Finally, the paper proposes a narrative on how design capabilities are manifested, evaluated, and supported for addressing innovation effectively.

Design Capabilities for Value Creation

The 19th DMI: Academic Design Management Conference "Design Management in an Era of Disruption"

The Innovation Dimension: Designing in a Broader Context

The term “innovation” has become increasingly prominent in debates in government policy through the establishment of the new UK government department, Department for Innovation, Universities, and Skills (DIUS) and through reports such as “Innovation Nation.”1 National funding bodies, such as research councils and the Leverhulme Trust, are emphasizing innovation through the “digital economy” and a corresponding prioritization in the design establishment through the activities and publications of the Design Council. These converging activities have highlighted the complex, overlapping, inconsistent, and incompletely understood relationship of innovation as used in design and innovation in the broader literature of innovation studies. Concentrating on the UK, this paper provides an indicative review of these fields and aims to achieve three goals: 1) Describe the wider academic field of innovation and relate this to a design perspective, 2) examine the connections, tensions, and synergies that emerge as these fields converge, and 3) propose active areas for contributions between fields. Many disciplines are active in innovation research, including management studies, economics, entrepreneurship, psychology, sociology, and, starting to emerge in broader innovation studies, design. The velocity of research, especially in the area of design and innovation, is increasing, driven by the developing needs of the digital or knowledge economy. Specifically, the UK government has committed to spending £3.5bn on innovation through the Technology Strategy Board (TSB). These initiatives were shaped in the UK by a series of policy papers, including: Competing in the Global Economy -The Innovation Challenge,2 Creativity, Design, and Business Performance,3 Innovation in the UK: Indicators and Insights,4 The Cox Review of Creativity in Business: Building on the UK’s Strengths,5 The Race to the Top: A Review of Government’s Science and Innovation Policies,6 Innovation Nation,7 and Creative Britain - New Talents for the New Economy.8 In a European context an engagement with innovation is seen in an ongoing manner through the activities of Euro-Innova,9 the EU’S innovation portal. This portal sponsors an ongoing series of activities, from conferences to innovation panels, that look at sector-specific innovation issues ranging from textiles to space to gazelles (fast-growing small and medium enterprises (SMEs)). There has also been a long-standing commitment to investigating innovation through the Community Innovation Survey (CIS), a Europe-wide survey to measure and analyze innovation activity in companies. This survey has been completed every four years since 1993, with the last CIS including responses from more than 140,000 companies. -1- Beyond Europe there is broader international interest in innovation, seen in the activities of the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development). This group of 30 industrialized nations has developed a widely accepted and implemented international standard for the measure and analysis of innovation, known as the Oslo Manual.10 This standard allows for the direct comparison of national innovation surveys, and the EU has facilitated this comparison through the ongoing funding of projects, from the 1990s onward, that analyze CIS data.11 To date there has been relatively little direct discussion of innovation in design, although this is changing partly because it is stimulated by government funding and policy that concentrate on innovation. There has been a degree of surprise and skepticism in design journalism that innovation has come to such prominence, questioning any substantive difference between innovation and design. (See Poynors, “Down with Innovation.”12) George Cox takes the view that “design is what links creativity and innovation,”13 although throughout his report innovation and design are usually used together (design innovation) in a way that compresses this distinction. There is evidence to support the assertion that the creative sector is more innovative than other firms. The UK National Innovation Survey of 2005 shows that in a measure of key innovation indicators, the creative industries are 12 percent more likely to demonstrate these indicators than other firms.14 However, this statistic also demonstrates that innovation is by no means dominated by the creative industries. Although it is possible to read reports such as Innovation Nation15 from a design perspective and to see design as explicitly core to the development of competitiveness through innovation in the UK, looking a little closer the picture is more complex. Innovation Nation describes the key skills for innovation to be developing science and technology, management, and creativity, as well as softer skills “for things such as open-innovation,” but the white paper recognizes the creative industries as a component of a subsidiary “hidden innovation,” placing design outside the mainstream of innovation activity. In academic studies of innovation, design is often not represented at all. For example, the 650-page Oxford Handbook of Innovation16 does not include any references to design, and in a recent review of the top 50 innovation journals, no design journals were represented.17 This evidence is presented here not to dislocate innovation from design. As James Utterback argues, product design is more of a force in innovation now than 20 years ago.18 This higher profile for design in innovation studies is reflected in the latest amendments to the Oslo Manual, adding the marketing category to make it easier for design activity to be counted as an indicator of innovation. What is clear is that the relationship between design and innovation is not straightforward or well established.

Better by Design? Capturing the Role of Design in Innovation

2006

The essence of innovation is the process of bringing to market new products or processes which, if successful, generate new economic value. Traditionally, we have come to view this process as one in which the primary inputs are scientific, technological, or commercial. Scientists working in university, corporate or public labs generate new knowledge in a variety of forms that may lead to commercializable outputs. Institutions of higher learning produce highly qualified personnel who transmit knowledge in embodied form throughout the economy, enhancing the innovative capacity of firms. Engineers, technical workers and organizational specialists develop new production processes and improvements to existing processes. Interaction with customers and suppliers provides important knowledge inputs that further contribute to the innovation process.

Entrepreneurial design: the role of design as driver of entrepreneurial opportunity generation and assessment

The discovery (or creation) of entrepreneurial opportunities is a crucial starting point of the entrepreneurial process, yet, the process remains casual and sloppy. There are many similarities between the front-end of the new product development process and the front-end of the entrepreneurial process. Although many authors acknowledge creativity as an important factor in the generation of entrepreneurial opportunities, none of them acknowledges any contribution from design. When creative capabilities are used at the front-end of innovation, aspiring entrepreneurs can be more productive because design approaches enable entrepreneurs to be pro-active, consistent and reliable, rather than just exploratory and reactive. Design, especially service design, possesses instruments that allow for the framing, development, co-designing and prototyping of complex intangible projects thus potentially being a powerful ally to entrepreneurs. The purpose of this article is to postulate the use of a set of service design tools as creative capabilities for empowering aspiring entrepreneurs in the front-end of the entrepreneurial process to frame, create, develop and assess business ideas, potentially turning them into entrepreneurial opportunities and posit the use of design strategies and instruments in the front-end of the entrepreneurial process.

Design in Action: Understanding the Drivers and Barriers to Strategic Use of Design for Innovation

2018

Copyright © 2018. Copyright in each paper on this conference proceedings is the property of the author(s). Permission is granted to reproduce copies of these works for purposes relevant to the above conference, provided that the author(s), source and copyright notice are included on each copy. For other uses, including extended quotation, please contact the author(s). Design in Action: Understanding the Drivers and Barriers to Strategic Use of Design for Innovation Jea Hoo NA, Martyn EVANS , Emilene ZITKUS, Anna WHICHER and Andrew WALTERS a Manchester School of Art, Manchester Metropolitan University; b PDR, Cardiff Metropolitan University

The Dynamic Capacity of Design in the Entrepreneurial Organisation

Organisations are now adapting a design approach to strategic decision-making. Yet, this is constrained by an undeveloped understanding of design thinking processes within the strategy context. We address this context; exploring the theoretical linkages between the dynamic capabilities literature and design thinking. Through a qualitative study of eight Australian innovation managers utilising a design approach, we synthesise dynamic capability literature with design thinking practices. We find that design thinking entails the routines that constitute a dynamic capability. In this paper we discuss how design thinking incorporates sensing and seizing loops, which enable managers to identify entrepreneurial opportunities, strategic threats, develop new business models, and how design instigates effective, collective resource reconfigurations that help adapt to changing circumstances.

Design Entrepreneurship in Innovation (original) (raw)

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