Innovative Mindset Research Articles

An exploration of an entrepreneur’s open innovation mindset in an emerging country

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to connect open innovation and entrepreneurship literature by focusing on the influence of entrepreneurs’ open innovation mindset and alertness on a firm’s financial performance in a country that has recently transitioned from socialism into capitalism.Design/methodology/approachThe study is based on a sample of 188 entrepreneurs who answered a survey about their personality characteristics in Time 1. In time 2, the authors collected firm-related data from a national database on firms’ financial statements.FindingsThe results show that an individual’s level of open innovation mindset has a positive impact on entrepreneurial alertness. The results also show an important and previously under-investigated relationship between entrepreneurial alertness and firm financial performance.Research limitations/implicationsThis study spurs research in the field of open innovation on the individual level of the entrepreneurs who have considerable influence on small firms’ results, and draws attention into the under-investigated innovation and entrepreneurship agenda in a small and transitioning country.Practical implicationsOpen innovation starts with an open innovation mindset of entrepreneurs, so entrepreneurs are those who set the open innovation path of firms.Originality/valueWhile open innovation triggered interest among business practitioners and management innovation scholars, it remained focused on management topics connected to a broad strategic setting of a firm. However, research related to entrepreneurial companies which benefit significantly from external sources of innovation has received scarce attention, and open innovation on the entrepreneur’s individual level even less so.

Learning from System Engineering to deploy Product Lifecycle Management

“Product oriented” companies need to integrate new functions and services that are “user friendly” in order to stay relevant in the market. The growing data produced to support the development and the exploitation of these products, requires them to go within a Product Lifecycle Management or to modify it to take into account new needs. Most of time this leads to use disruptive technologies and innovative mindsets in order to well align tool market capabilities to industry businesses.The approach presented in this paper contributes to identify the product lifecycle management as an end-product composed of several compounds which can be managed within a system engineering process. The system engineering framework is used to propose a comprehensive picture of the operational, functional and structural breakdown need for the Product Lifecycle Management deployment.

The Classroom of the Future: Disrupting the Concept of Contemporary Business Education

Objective: The goal of the article is to discuss and elaborate on the skillset required in education of managers and entrepreneurs to face challenges of their future positions. Research Design & Methods: The article is of a descriptive character, based on literature review and its constructive criticism. It presents a case study of S P Jain School of Global Management in Dubai/Mumbai/Singapore/Sydney and experts’ insights. Findings: The classroom of the future, based on idea of design thinking lab, equipped with the most modern solutions of Virtual and Augmented Reality (VR, AR), interactive detachable workstations, shareable smartboards and interactive video display walls, seems to be the passport to success in the digital world. Immersive interaction with AI, ubiquitous computing and technology exposure prepare contemporary business students for future working space, encompassing a variety of problems to be solved, allowing to attain new skills and a smooth transit from education to a desired job or entrepreneurship practice. Implications & Recommendations: The creation of ‘future ready’ graduates requires an innovative mindset and agility to evolve and adapt continuously, with simultaneous focus on disruptive innovation through digital transformation. Incorporating latest digital technologies and innovations into the learning environment seems to be competitive advantage and the key to success on education market. Contribution & Value Added: The article in subsequent chapters lists the awaited skills of future entrepreneurs and managers, indicates available solutions and technologies to boost classroom experience and gives a practical example of technology use. Moreover, it indicates transformation pathway for business schools to embrace challenges of the future labour market and equip their graduates with hands-on experience and required skills.

BUILDING BETTER LAW: HOW DESIGN THINKING CAN HELP US BE BETTER LAWYERS, MEET NEW CHALLENGES, AND CREATE THE FUTURE OF LAW

The legal profession faces increasing challenges to the relevance, utility, and acceptance of law and the rule of law as tools of social organization that are important and essential to human beings. Often the issues which challenge law and legal systems seem perennial, obstinate, and intractable. In order to remain relevant to the societies it serves, the law needs to innovate. We need to find new ways of thinking about law as a human designed and deliberate system of social organization. In this context, adopting an innovation mindset is an important starting point. “Design thinking” offers us a description and practice of an innovation mindset that can be and is employed in a variety of professional contexts. This article is an introduction to design thinking, its challenges, and its possibilities for law. It postulates that in fact design thinking as a concept and as a set of techniques is particularly well suited for use in law, and that we actually employ many of its techniques already. The article argues that by bringing these techniques into sharper focus, we can both recognize how we are in some ways using them already, and more importantly, how they can be deployed in even more useful and innovative ways to “build better law” at all scales of the legal endeavour, from individual service to legal systems.

Looking Outside Health Care to Teach Innovation in Physical Therapy Business Practice: Use of Harvard Business School Cases at Emory University

Background and Purpose. With profound changes in health care and the need for innovation to deliver exceptional value to patients receiving physical therapy, it is incumbent that students are prepared to look outside health care to adopt business practices from other industries and foster innovation as they begin to practice physical therapy. The purpose of this paper is to describe how the case-based analysis of Harvard Business School (HBS) cases from a variety of industries was implemented to teach business disciplines and promote innovative thinking in Doctor of Physical Therapy students at Emory University. Method/Model Description and Evaluation. The process for developing the course including course content and objectives, pedagogical, methods, student assessment including course evaluation and alumni survey at Emory University is described in this study. In addition, quantitative and qualitative analysis of students' course evaluation outcomes has been described in this paper. Outcomes. A total of 57 students participated in the elective course over the past 4 academic years. Class participation, written assignments, and quantitative analysis of course evaluations indicate that students agree the course objectives were met. Qualitative analysis of anonymous student comments revealed core themes of innovative course format and innovative learning, showing that the course instilled an innovation mindset in our students. Finally, 94% of course alumni survey respondents agreed that the course created an entrepreneurial and innovative mindset that impacted their practice of physical therapy. Discussion and Conclusion. We successfully introduced a course in a physical therapist education program to include training in innovation using HBS cases. To deliver exceptional value to patients receiving physical therapy, we must innovate. Thus, preparation of physical therapist practitioners who can innovate is critical to achieve our vision of optimizing movement to improve human experience and thereby transform society.

Advanced Business Model Innovation

The development and innovation of Business models to a Future teleinfrastructure for multi-sensory devices—is a complex venture related to adaptability in especially for the business research and praxis community. As numerous types of sensor and wireless technologies are these days being embedded both external and internal human beings, things and business models the business community are still lacking behind and challenge because they still not have agree to standards of Business Model language and are dealing with Business Model Innovation as if it was simple product- or service innovation. Research shows that Business Model Innovation are different and when it becomes embedded with persuasive technologies it requires advanced business model innovation approach and mindset. A conceptual outlook to advanced Business model innovation embedded with persuasive technologies is the aim of this paper. The paper discuss on behalf of inputs from Strategic Workshop 2016, IEE workshop at NJIT 2016, lab experiments in the MBIT Lab–our findings and understanding of advanced business model innovation of tomorrow.

Innovative Mindset in School Education: A global issue or trend in Pakistan

Education and training are emerging now key drivers of competitiveness for any country on the globe. To cope with the globalization a country has to elevate her education system. In Pakistan, HEC upgraded the Teacher Education (TE) by replacing the one-year B.Ed. with the 4 years B.Ed. (Honors). The upgraded TE and the global challenges are well connected with the real implementation of vision 2030 agenda in the School Education (SE). And very crucial to address the advancements in TE for the production of teachers with the innovative mindset to grip the global reach in the future. The Punjab government is planning to stop the upgraded 4-year program offered since 2009 in the 33 Government Elementary Colleges for Teachers Training (GCETs) instead of making them self-sustain. The study with main objectives: i) to collect, need assessment data for the global advancements adaptation from the GCETs. ii) To analyze critically educational documents along with the budget allocation for globalization. iii) To propose a conceived factual framework for transforming teacher education in Punjab was conducted by utilizing mixed research methods, visualized the advanced professional training needs and essential global interventions. Then it strived to propose a transformation mechanism for the elevation of TE. The data analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively through percentages, triangulation and content analysis. The study resolved the globalization issue, by bridging the gaps through a transformation framework outlines for modification in TE. The conceived factual framework is a dynamic revolutionary route to improving the quality of school education via contemporary TE. The suggested framework if implemented in future after validation it would save the scarce resources and provide maximum outputs through quality education.

Group dynamics and the role of ICT in the life cycle analysis of community of practice-based product development: a case study

PurposeThis paper aims to examine the dynamics of a community of practice (CoP) through a case study of eCars – Now! They offer open-source blueprints of the electric conversion kits globally. The authors analysed the CoP by considering its entire life cycle, starting from the motives for its establishment, through its active performance, up to the current stage, where the members need to decide whether the community will remain viable. Particular attention was paid to the group dynamics and issues that seemed relevant to the change in dynamics which determine whether a CoP maintains its vitality or dissipates.Design/methodology/approachThe qualitative case study was chosen as the research strategy (Yin, 1984) to answer the research question and understand the target phenomenon of the CoP by analysing textual data. This particular case was chosen because of its unusual revelatory value for the case CoP which aims at creating a tangible innovation by using a platform that normally aims at intangible problem-solving (Eisenhardt and Graebner, 2007). In the data collection, the authors used method and researcher triangulation (Patton, 1990).FindingsLife cycle analysis revealed four themes that explained the change in the group dynamics and the dispersal of the community: differentiation and dispersal of interests, growth that resulted in role differentiation, virtuality in community development and inclusion of investors. The themes were all related to the fact that the case community operated with not only knowledge, but also with a tangible product. Therefore, the tangibility of a problem to be solved seems to play a pivotal role in a CoP’s operations and dynamics and, in part, also explains the changing role of information and communications technology (ICT) in the process.Research limitations/implicationsHowever, this paper identified also different ways to characterize community participation, which was also relevant from group dynamics point of view. Thus, the topic should be studied further. Group dynamics in general, as it relates to the success of CoPs, should be also investigated further. Additional studies should implement the inclusion of external resources in the community. Further research is also needed to investigate tangible and intangible outcomes achieved through CoPs. Much of the available research was conducted over short periods; prolonged interactions in a CoP context could show different results.Practical implicationsIn conclusion, at the beginning of the life cycle of the eCars community, ICT played a significant role. It helped increase awareness of the community in the first place and enabled people to join in, which thus enabled the community to evolve. When the operations evolved and the life cycle progressed, both the physical meeting place as well as personal interaction and communication became emphasized and much more important. In the maturing stage, the role of ICT, and especially social media, is the essential part of the community.Social implicationsThis analysis suggests that at the early stage of a community, the plans can be somewhat random, even utopian, but when the community evolves, this uncertainty can become a problem. First, it affects achieving the actual, and in this case, concrete results. Second, uncertainty and unclarity dampen enthusiasm and motivation, which are of utmost importance due to the voluntary participation. This paper also concludes that when the operations evolved and the life cycle progressed, both the physical meeting place as well as personal interaction and communication became increasingly important.Originality/valueThis paper argues that the ideological basis for this kind of community should be openness. All information should be available for everyone who registers to the community platform on the internet. This community was working in the mindset of open innovation. Technical documentation and all other material were available for everyone in the community’s wiki pages, which attracted a lot of people who were delighted by eCars. Many advisors delivered technical information and good advice to the practitioners of the community through the platform. The hang arounds were also very well-informed in this stage regarding how the core group was working.

Innovation and Transformation That Drive Value

Stephanie S. McCutcheon, FACHE, is CEO of the Health Employer Exchange, based in Baltimore, Maryland.

A mindset of entrepreneurship for sustainability

This study focuses on exploring the elements needed for entrepreneurship education in the future for generating economic, social and environmental sustainability for the community and for developing future leaders through understanding the existing entrepreneurship related policies, programmes, modules and the perception of teenagers of entrepreneurship skills to realise the importance of a mindset of entrepreneurship and the ways of integrating multidisciplinary knowledge for developing entrepreneurship spirit to meet the challenges of the future. This topic has not been comprehensively explored in the past. After conducting quantitative analysis on 95 undergraduate students of a postsecondary institution in Hong Kong on entrepreneurship skills, the regression results presented in this paper found “entrepreneurship skills include implementation skill” can explain about 33percent of the change in the dependent variable of “sustainable skill sets include building a positive mindset”. And, the mean scores of “entrepreneurship skills include creativity and risk-taking are the same as 4.02 out of a 5-point scale while “dislike handling paperwork with details”, “dislike facing people I don’t know” and “dislike being challenges” received the lowest scores of 2.6, 2.7 and 2.7 respectively. With regard to the qualitative analysis of existing entrepreneurship related programmes, it is found that business, management, finance and contemporary issues are the common elements in existing programmes of which the skills of creativity, risk-taking, socialization, handling details and challenges are lacking. When analysing the meeting notes of UNESCO, APEID in February, 2015 of nine countries (India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, China Hong Kong, Japan, and Republic of Korea), there is a trend on the importance of entrepreneurship and innovation mindset with three common concerns, that is, a lack of competent teachers teaching entrepreneurship programmes, a lack of industry exposure and a lack of government support. This paper highlights the key elements of future entrepreneurship related programmes for sustainability. Both educators and policy makers not only need to respond to the ecosystem of entrepreneurship education, but also need to co-produce relevant and meaningful entrepreneurship related modules and programmes which focus on soft skills development for building a positive mindset for handling challenges of the future

Human resources management and open innovation adoption in the banking sector: a conceptual model

Open innovation has received wide attention and has been explored in various sectors of the economy. However, despite the abundant literature in the field, there is an on-going debate around the organisational aspect of this paradigm. This conceptual paper aims at contributing to this debate by developing a conceptual model, which explores the relationship between human resources management practices and open innovation adoption in the banking sector. Based on an extensive literature review, the role of human resources management towards the adoption of open innovation in the banking sector is investigated in relation to two fundamental organisational elements: trust and readiness. The authors highlight the role of human resources management as a fundamental element towards the adoption of open innovation practices in the banking sector and strongly suggest that; a) human resources management affects the adoption of open innovation in the banking sector and b) trust and readiness moderate the relationship between human resources management and open innovation adoption. The proposed research propositions depict a shift towards a more flexible and open human resources management system in the banking sector and the emergence of an innovative mindset empowering organisational performance.

Repositioning Senior Secondary Education in Nigeria for Producing Entrepreneurial-Oriented Students

This paper brings to the fore a realization of the fact that the performance of the products (outputs) of the education system is an index of the inputs into the system. For the students to have enterprising and innovative mindsets, it isimportant to expose them early to practical entrepreneurial and vocational skills while in school. This study thereforesought to identify what skills are imparted to the students practically and the teaching/learning exercises used. Theresearch design was descriptive survey. Government Secondary Schools (236) in Rivers State, Nigeria constitutedthe population. Proportionate stratified random sampling technique was used to get a sample size of 70 (30%) seniorsecondary schools. The total respondents were 140 made up of 70 principals and 70 vice-principals. Three researchquestions and one hypothesis guided the study. Data were collected using structured questionnaire. The instrumentreliability was established using test re-test method (r-coefficient was 0.82), Mean ( X ) and standard deviation (SD)were used to answer the research questions and the hypothesis analysed using t-test at 0.05 level of significance.Practically the students were taught some vocational skills like agriculture, technical drawing, food and nutrition.The entrepreneurial skills imparted to them are communication skills, personality skills, and digital literacy skills. Itwas recommended among other things that the students should be exposed to more practical skills. Students centeredteaching/learning exercise need to be used to encourage active participation of the student.

Innovative structural engineering and execution approach to delivering modular facilities for the Gorgon Project

The Gorgon Project on Barrow Island, located about 60 km from the northwest coast of Australia, was given the green light in September 2009. Construction and commissioning of the Gorgon LNG trains is limited to a 300 hectare development on a Class A reserve. Our commitment to the environment has driven our use of extensive modularisation to build the LNG trains. All of the major components have been pre-fabricated and assembled offsite into transportable parts,“ significantly reducing our footprint on the island. Subsequently the structural modules (including pre-assembled Piperacks) have undertaken a journey on a scale and complexity unmatched in the global LNG industry. The modules have been designed and built at diversely located engineering, fabrication and construction sites. These are then loaded out and sea transported from different international shipyards in more than 6. sea-transportation voyages, carrying more than 300 modules weighing more than 280,000 tonnes under constantly varying and hostile sea-faring conditions. The modules reach their final destination at Barrow Island to be installed without impacting the island’s uniquely treasured flora and fauna. These modules are designed to operate for its entire service life on cyclone-rated Barrow Island, which in the past has registered the highest ever wind gust of 408 kmph. Design and execution of the modules to sustain severe environmental conditions during its service lifecycle has been made possible by employing an innovative engineering mindset supported by robust structural methodologies to develop suitable facilities that can operate in a highly complex environment. This extended abstract showcases the structural engineering and execution methodologies that successfully overcame the challenging journey of the modules, thereby delivering a world class development co-existing with conservation in a pristine nature reserve on a very limited footprint.

Patient safety and surgical innovation–complementary or mutually exclusive?

Safety vs. innovationSafety and innovation are not and need not be antago-nists, but synonyms. If innovation is driven by safety, wecan hopefully accelerate the rate of innovation desper-ately needed in medicine.In the surgical microcosm, it is not infrequent to hearthe voices of surgical conservatism question innovation:why change the current device or method? It is provento work, it is vetted by years of clinical research, andshould therefore be chosen–because it’s safer. There’snothing wrong with that thought process, is there?There is no doubt that safety is the cornerstone of ourpractice. However, caution and prudence should not bedeterrents for innovation. On the contrary, if youngersurgeons or trainees have the luxury of being attractedto innovation, it is only because their mentors use estab-lished methods and strategies. This creates a setting ofsafety and security in which younger surgeons arerooted. The established surgical practice needs to be oneof absolute focus on safety; only then can the youngergeneration be comfortable enough with the currenttechnologies to look into its shortcomings.Just like creating a safe household and offering chil-dren a rigid set of ground rules and education, anchor-ing residents in safety is a critical initial step. But atsome point, your children will need to experience theirown life. And if you hamper that, your kids will neversurpass you… The role of mentors is therefore to teachand give trainees the tools to practice surgery safely.This will allow them to recreate the same environmentof absolute attention to safety for their own patients.Surgical curriculums are aimed at training residents toreach this stage, not to surpass it. It is good, but not goodenough. Once surgical training has been appropriatelyachieved, it is also the role of mentors to push trainees toventure out further and not fall asleep in the safe mode.They should be encouraged to keep searching. If we wantour field to evolve, we owe it to ourselves, to our patients,and to our trainees not to stop at simply reproducing whatwe have learned, but to improve it.It is thus our role, as teachers, to encourage a mindsetof innovation in medical students and residents, and givethem the tools to pursue innovation safely.Finding unmet needs in surgical practice?Innovation and surgery can be two facets to the sameperson, the same career. However, since the times of il-lustrious surgeon/inventors who could bring their inven-tions directly from the lab to the operating room, thingshave changed. Just like surgeons pursuing basic researchdon’t inject the stem cells they grow in their lab in thepatient they care for on the floor, clinical practice is not aplace to carelessly experience with innovation. And currentrules and regulations ensure that fact thoroughly. However,clinical practice is a unique set for identification of unmeetclinical needs. The surgeon has the unique “privilege” ofwitnessing the shortcomings of current treatments andtheir impact on patients. It is her or his duty to use this“privilege” to improve care. The best innovation, and thesafest innovation, is the one grounded in real problemsolving needs. Only if we identify problems worth solv-ing, will we develop solutions worth pursuing. And assurgeons, these solutions often take the shape of de-vices, which is exactly what medtech innovation is:Medical or surgical technology (Medtech) innovationrefers the process whereby scientific discoveries, whichcould solve clinical problems, are driven forward acrossthe translational gap into a device used in clinical prac-tice [1,2].Training to innovateSo you’ve identified an unmet need. Maybe invented asolution… Now what?Navigating the requirement of medical technology de-velopment is actually only getting more and more com-plex: what regulatory pathway is required in the US forthe device to be FDA cleared or approved, or CE marked

工学系学生の活動履歴が「就職決定力」に及ぼす要因の研究

Our competitive edge is built upon innovation - and innovation requires talented, well-trained engineers. Therefore, engineering education must be helping students acquire the innovative mindset and skills. In order to construct an effective engineering education, we need to help students find their possibilities from their activities. The purpose of this study is to clarify the abilities of the university students’ starting job hunting, thereafter ; we define “carrier potential” by seeking the difference between student who can find their work and students who cannot find. In furtherance of this purpose, we mentioned a relationship between students’ carrier finding and “self-affirmation” .

Maker Movement Spreads Innovation One Project at a Time

Lessons learned from the grassroots spreading of the “maker movement” can help us reimagine schools and foster a mindset of creativity and innovation in educational settings.

Innovating the Corporation

The articles in this special issue offer a diverse collection of views on the future of innovation, but they agree on one point: the future will be different. New technologies--and old problems--are driving fundamental shifts that will reshape society and the marketplace. Responding to those changes, and surviving in the emerging world of the future, will require a profound rethinking, not just of RD less on the authority of the few and more on the judgment of many; less on compulsion and more on motivation; less on external control of people and more on discipline. Hock, former CEO of VISA International, envisions a chaordic that will meet these demands by giving up traditional top-down control mechanisms in pursuit of flexibility and responsiveness, relying on a blend of competition and cooperation to produce results--chaos and order in perfect balance. We can already discern the broad outlines of the innovative corporation of the future: It is, as Bob Cooper describes it in his forthcoming article on next-generation idea-to-launch systems, adaptive, agile, and accelerated. Its borders are porous, allowing it to assimilate ideas and knowledge from outside as well as within the organization. It is structured to encourage participants--employees, but also others engaged in the organization's processes--to collaborate, learn, and create. It uses technology, from smartphones to social media to cloud-based software tools, to facilitate sharing and collaboration and to proliferate innovation mindsets across the organization. Peter Senge offers an early view of what such an organization might look like in his concept of the learning organization, most fully explored in The Fifth Discipline (1990). (Mark Smith provides a substantive summary of Senge's key ideas in his entry for the Encyclopedia of Informal Learning, and John Renesch and Sarita Chawla offer an updated view in Learning Organizations [2006], a collection of essays by leading practitioners and scholars, including Senge himself.) The learning organization is driven by systems thinking, which allows the organization to maintain a long-term orientation and a focus on the real results of an action. Its primary function is to provide structures to support reflection and engagement in an effort to discover how to tap people's commitment and capacity to learn at all levels. In the learning organization, people are not just cogs in a corporate machine, limited to their particular place in the system, but are active participants in shaping both their own future and that of the organization. …

The role of manufacturers in food innovations in Sweden

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to investigate how food manufacturers in Sweden define and view innovations, how they view their role and those of other actors and the interaction/collaboration regarding innovations in the food supply/value chain.Design/methodology/approachAfter an exploratory pre‐study with 12 participants, a full study of Swedish manufacturers comprised of representatives from 12 food companies was initiated. In total, 21 interviews were carried out. The majority of the respondents had food industry experience. They initially answered structured questions and thereafter open‐ended ones.FindingsFew, if any, innovations in the Swedish food sector are considered radical. Many are “invisible” to meet demands for lower cost, shorter orders and sustainability. The food manufacturers seem to develop products in house for consumers and not by working with them or others inside or outside the supply chain; they do not adopt an “open” innovation mindset. There is lack of trust in the chain and limited exchange of information. Some manufacturers pursue horizontal collaboration with other manufacturers abroad.Research limitations/implicationsInnovations and strategies are a competitive edge for a company, so the respondents may not have been completely open.Practical implicationsManufacturers and the whole supply chain would benefit from an “open innovation” mindset to organise and work differently and build trust.Originality/valueThere is no other published study on innovations and food manufacturers in Sweden. The food sector should embark on collaboration and coopetion and initiate discussions on what can be done to become more innovative.

E-services in the ageing society: An Italian perspective

More advanced resources needed to provide a service portfolio that responds to the rapid growth of an ageing population is a concern for many governments in developed countries. This paper explores the convergent insights of three conceptual frameworks to identify where age-aware e-Government is more likely to be designed effectively. It shows how the social and relational capital of the Italian industrial districts make them ideal settings, receptive to the implementation of age aware e-Government services, thanks to both the innovative mindset of the business community and their rich social capital.

Design Thinking

This paper outlines a project to develop and track 'design thinking' skills within groups of students in late primary and early secondary years of schooling in order to strengthen their creative skills and innovative mindsets. The outcome of the research will be the development of a model for the broad-based implementation of design thinking in schools which will foster students' creative skills, critical for 21st century living and their capacity to make a strong contribution to innovation in their future workplaces. Students will develop competence in using the steps - 'understand, observe, visualise, evaluate, refine and implement' - in relation to examining contemporary issues concerned with living in rural and remote areas and will subsequently design illustrative multimedia presentations or computer games. Design thinking as a framework to solve problems and/or as a pedagogical framework has emerged from the processes that designers have used over the last twenty years to create unique and innovative products. A convincing literature base has continued to grow across almost every discipline area, yet 'design thinking' is only just starting to influence school-based education.