 Revealing product innovation practitioners’ perspectives on design thinking: An exploratory research using Q-sort methodologyShihui Fu, Yi Sun and Yanting Guo Technology in Society, 2023, vol. 74, issue C Abstract: Design thinking (DT) has become a buzzword in the business world recently. Despite DT's practical relevance for innovation, the term itself is still ambiguous and often a source of confusion and misunderstandings. In line with the recent plea of investigating DT with an exploratory view acknowledging that differences exist in DT's actual use, this study employs Q-sort methodology to investigate product innovation practitioners' subjective perspectives on DT, i.e., what meanings are given to this term. An inquiry on thirty-one designers and product managers revealed five meaningful perspectives, taking DT as sensitivity to reality, a vision of the future, a user-centric agile innovation method, a thinking mode in problem-solving, and a favorable attitude towards innovation and creativity, respectively. The implications of these five perspectives are further discussed, depending on which a comprehensive framework of DT viewpoints is developed. The findings demonstrate the plurality of DT and promote our understanding of DT currently. Keywords: Design thinking; Product innovation; Practitioners' perspectives; Q-sort methodology (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:teinso:v:74:y:2023:i:c:s0160791x23000866 DOI: 10.1016/j.techsoc.2023.102281 Access Statistics for this article Technology in Society is currently edited by Charla Griffy-Brown More articles in Technology in Society from Elsevier |
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