The Relationship between Design Thinking Potential and Practiced Design Thinking: Examining the Moderating Effects of Workplace Context

Abstract

Design thinking is a process that businesses and other professions have been adopting in the recent years for organizational innovation. However, even with the increasing popularity and use of design thinking there have been few academic studies in this area. The aim of this study is to contribute to the demystification of design thinking for organizational innovation and a deeper theoretical understanding. A research model was developed to explore multiple hypotheses on the relationship between potential design thinking of an employee to their practiced design thinking and the moderating effects of the workplace context. The model was based on previous studies in the area of creativity but it is the first academic survey to attempt to understand and measure design thinking in organizations. The research findings are based on a sample group of 160 employees at Singapore Polytechnic. The results show potential design thinking constructs, including individual employee creativity and design thinking working styles, have direct impact on the practiced design thinking of the employee. Among the contextual factors, both workplace innovative opportunity and workplace atmosphere exhibit positively direct effects on the practiced design thinking of the employee while workplace atmosphere also negatively moderates the relationship between individual employee creativity and the practiced design thinking. Implications and future directions are discussed.