Design Thinking Framework Toward Management Control System in Environmental Dynamism: An Innovation Perspective

Abstract

Design thinking has been largely acknowledged as a technical advancement in business circles in terms of technology, innovation, creativity, and flexibility. Design techniques are becoming more and more popular among organizational executives as a cure-all for uncertainty and upheaval, so it is important to take environmental dynamism into account. However, with few exceptions, design thinking studies are most entrenched in considering various organization factors rather than environmental and control systems. The purpose of the present article is to shed insights into the relationship between design thinking and management control systems under the condition of a dynamic setting. Moreover, the article also presents design thinking as a strategic innovation concept that links to and works to achieve sustainable competitive advantage. Further, we develop the framework that hypothesized design thinking relationship to diagnostic and interactive control systems (ICSs) in the domain of environmental dynamism and competitive advantage. A survey was conducted on research and development intensive firms varying from manufacturing to service. The results of this article revealed that design thinking is strongly linked with ICSs and sustainable competitive advantage. The present article suggests an imperative way toward integration of the concept of design thinking in businesses while considering environmental factors, given the growing scholarly interest in both design thinking and management control systems. The article also offers fruitful research directions and analyzes the ramifications of such directions for theory and practice.