Journal of Design, Business & Society - Volume 1, Issue 2, 2015

This article aims to extend the body of knowledge on Sensemaking as a capability for organizational and strategic change by investigating how design methods could support Sensemaking activities. In order to investigate how design methods can consciously influence Sensemaking activities and how this supports an organization, the case of a large aviation industry manufacturer is taken into consideration. The company under investigation is dealing with implementing their newly established strategy to its everyday work and product innovation practices moving towards service enabling systems. This strategy has been chosen as industry is forced to find new drivers such as passenger experience to gain competitive advantage. As a consequence, manufacturers must also change strategy to support airlines in achieving their goals. Sensemaking is an essential mechanism that manufacturers use to understand the service goals of airlines.

Sensemaking is defined as the process of cognitively organizing the unknown in order to give it meaning and to be able to act on it. In three separate moments of the innovation process, each taking place in a different project, design methods were used to explore their ability to support the manufacturer in Sensemaking activities.

This research considers innovation from the user point of view in order to enhance the design and commercialization of technology-based products. Previous studies predominantly analyse innovation as a function of technology advantage; that is how new competitors who have advanced research and development (R&D) can challenge the incumbents’ position. However little is understood about the potentially ambiguous position that technology-based products may have on the market due to the diverse perception that different market segments may hold of such products. Consequently innovations studies are limited in overlooking innovation as a function of users’/consumers’ perception. The findings of this research reveal that innovation may be disruptive and evolutionary at the same time for different consumer groups. Consumers’ perception of technology products can influence their decisionmaking pre-purchase as well as their level of adoption. Analogical learning, or the inability to apply it, is in part responsible for the choices that consumers make when considering whether to purchase, use and discard technological products. Exposure and familiarity with the product category are also factors that influence consumers’ perception, especially among the ageing segment of the population. The ambiguity of products’ perception represents an unusual puzzle for businesses that are now required to alter design features and marketing communication strategies to appeal to different consumers despite the fact that the product is inherently the same from a business point of view.

This study examines how design can be employed to create a competitive advantage for start-ups in seeking external funding.

Access to funding is a crucial factor for start-ups when it comes to building, developing and growing their business. A better understanding of the criteria sought by investors or financiers can aid entrepreneurs in obtaining funding. The current literature on fundraising overlooks the role that design plays in start-ups’ fundraising activities.

A multiple case study analysis shows a number of ways that start-ups might benefit from a design-led approach to fundraising. The study is based on interviews with Danish institutional and private investors, designers, design institutions, governmental organizations and key decision makers in design-led start-ups.

The researchers identify the main opportunities and challenges for designled start-ups in the fundraising process and demonstrate how taking a design-led approach towards fundraising might confer a competitive advantage for start-ups that are looking to obtain external funding.

The study shows how this competitive advantage might be realized and proposes a model that explains how the fundraising process leading to the investment decision might be influenced by design. This newly proposed model was then tested in a small study of Australian-based entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs, looking for validation, similarities and anomalies between the Danish and Australian start-up cultures.

Design thinking continues to be an emergent field as it pertains to business. In building design thinking capability in organizations the current focus is on design skills and tools, rather than mindset. This imbalance toward design process, methods and tools is also present within design thinking and design research literature. Mindset is little acknowledged. The purpose of this article is to investigate and articulate the role of mindset within design thinking capability and practice. Mindset is the perspective that informs how a person approaches and interacts in the world (Nelson and Stolterman, 2013). Where mindset is acknowledged as a critical underpinning for design thinking in the literature, it is usually presented as a guiding principle for design doing. There is little insight into what the different mindsets are, how to develop or enact them or how mindset impacts on practice. Mindset remains underexplored in discussions of design competency and maturity.

By analysing qualitative data collected across three studies of a doctoral research project exploring the composition of design thinking in practice, two mindsets emerged. These were: design thinking as a way of work and design thinking as a way of life. Design thinking as a way of work is focused on the process of design thinking with the primary purpose of designing for outputs and innovation. Design thinking as a way of life is a holistic view of design thinking where the focus is on designing for transformation and creating positive change. These mindsets are scalable, applicable to an individual or organization. The two mindsets, when mapped against competencies in design knowledge, skills and tools, contribute a framework to explore maturity in design thinking. Understanding the maturity framework, and the role of mindset within it, has implications for how an individual and organization can build capability in design thinking and maximize outcomes in the environment in which they are designing.

As a complex ecosystem, the global digital environment includes actors and stakeholders with diverse values and distinct mindsets. In this research, we examine the digital ecosystem in the Finnish context of a business-led research and development (R&D) consortia (Need for Speed [N4S]), focusing on the early phases of research. The aim is to propose an iterative action research and case study framework for developing the Finnish digital business ecosystem with the use of service design thinking and tools.

Service design is the methodology and process of enabling co-creation activities during all steps of the design process, concept generation and prototyping before the launch of a service. The theoretical framework utilized in this research is cultural-historical activity theory (CHAT), which suggests the starting point for a more practical strategic tool.

Theory-based data analysis is applied to data on design methods used in service design cases with six companies, including co-creation workshops, reflective interviews, observation, visual documentation and rough service prototyping. The company cases were conducted by the Service Innovation Corner (SINCO) laboratory at the University of Lapland in 2013 and 2014. Two case companies operate in the customer service field in tourism, two in manufacturing and two in the software industry.