Revealing product innovation practitioners’ perspectives on design thinking: An exploratory research using Q-sort methodology

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.