Increasing interest in the use of design thinking (DT) in innovation has called into question its integration in organizational settings. We draw upon literature on management innovation and new ...practice implementation that highlights potential cultural conflicts between the values and assumptions underpinning the new practice and the culture of the organization that adopts it. We investigate the cultural fit between DT and the adopting firm through qualitative studies of 13 cases of DT implementation in large established firms complemented with data collected during eight workshops with DT practitioners and scholars. We abductively propose a cultural archetype of DT comprising eight dimensions: subjective and aesthetic ways of knowing, long‐term and nonlinear views about time, intrinsic motivation and sense of purpose, flexibility and change, relationships, empathy, and emotions at work, collaboration and inclusion, team autonomy and informality, and external orientation. We identify challenges and consequences associated with cultural misfits encountered in the implementation of DT: lack of legitimacy, lack of depth, disengagement, incrementalism, poor teamwork and alienation, collaboration lip service, micromanaged processes, and lack of external orientation. We thus (i) develop a characterization of DT by providing a detailed cultural archetype that we discuss relative to previous literature on DT and (ii) enrich the research on the recursive relationship between organizational culture and DT implementation, contributing to research on emotions in management and innovation culture. We also (iii) contribute to research on the challenges encountered by firms when adopting DT, extending the research on difficulties linked to cultural misfits when implementing new practices. Finally, we (iv) contribute to research on practice implementation and management innovation by highlighting the interplay between cultural fit, legitimacy, and the implementation climate.
A growing number of firms have integrated design in order to foster innovation and growth. Recent literature acknowledges design as a capability leading to differentiation and competitive advantage. ...However, how such a capability is built within companies with no past experience in design has not been fully addressed. Our objective is to bridge this gap. Indeed, most existing contributions focus on design intervention, that is, using design in projects, rather than design integration, that is, its systematic use and long‐term engagement as an embedded practice in the organization. Based on a longitudinal case study of an insurance company, complemented with an investigation of five other firms from other sectors, we offer a model for building design as a dynamic capability: Triggered by strategic orientations, firms acquire design resources and deploy them in activities such as projects in order to produce tangible results. Capitalizing on what they have learned in these projects, they progressively consolidate this knowledge in an expertise, which is then shared and diffused, thereby renewing the firm's resources. Therefore, our model highlights a reinforcement dimension: In addition to an operational capability (designing, spreading, and managing design), it is also a regenerative capability that consists in building the design expertise, advocating for it, anchoring, and renewing it. We thus have two contributions: (i) We conceptualize design as a dynamic capability enabling the development of new offerings, processes, and strategies that lead to organizations' competitiveness and transformation, and (ii) we propose a model for building such a capability.
The literature on new product development examines a variety of roles that prototypes can play based on the phase of the design process when they are used, but the characteristics of these prototypes ...that correspond to the expected outcomes, especially in the early phase of the design process, are understudied. We address this gap by studying the characteristics of the prototypes used in the design process (especially during the early phase) that correspond to their roles. Based on an analysis of six cases of prototypes that are used early on in the design process, we characterize three different archetypes of artefacts: stimulators, demonstrators, and validators, and we emphasize the coherence between the role they play in the design process and the characteristics that enable these roles. Specifying the roles of these artefacts should contribute to addressing the two flaws that are generally encountered during prototyping: overdesigning and overtrusting the prototypes.
•Exploration program involves the identification, coordination and management of a set of exploration projects•Exploration program targets a strategic renewal through technology, market or business ...models•It is integrated through mechanisms and boundary activities that evolve from initiation to implementation•Exploration program contributes to achieve ambidexterity at the firm level when the rest of the firm does exploitation
Exploration programs are collections of interconnected exploration projects that are identified, coordinated, and managed in order to pursue a strategic objective of exploring radical innovations to be developed by the parent organization. Based on a longitudinal fine-grained study of a firm that has launched such an initiative, we offer a characterization of an exploration program and outline the coexistence of its integration with, as well as its isolation from, its parent organization. This is achieved through mechanisms and boundary activities complementing each other and undertaken by actors involved in the program and located at different levels of the parent organization. We show how this integration with the parent organization evolves between the program initiation and its implementation and how the differences lie in its exploratory nature, i.e., the definition of its scope, which is not known at its launch, the potential leveraging of the firm's existing resources to execute the exploration projects and then to further develop them, and the capitalization on the projects’ outcome and the use of the knowledge that has been built in excess.
Thus we further bridge the literature on project and program management with the literature on innovation management and show how an exploration program can contribute to achieving ambidexterity at the firm level.
Which relational atmosphere would allow clients and suppliers to fully benefit from their innovation partnerships? Adopting an interactionist approach, we hypothesized that elements of a partnership ...atmosphere mediate the relationship between partnership type and relational performance. Based on taxonomic analysis of 160 cross-industry vertical innovation partnerships (VIPs) with differing contractual, relational, and organizational arrangements, we identified four VIP types: free, project-based, elaborated, and exclusive. Our results did not support a direct effect from VIP types on performance. However, we found that a trustful atmosphere enables achieving and exceeding expected benefits in both project-based and exclusive VIPs, whereas a familiar atmosphere enables achieving and exceeding expected benefits only for exclusive VIPs, and interdependence allows exceeding benefits only for project-based VIPs.
•Vertical innovation partnerships follow 4 types of governance arrangements: free, project-oriented, elaborated, exclusive.•None of them are directly related to performance when the atmosphere between the firms are not appropriate.•Trust is associated to performance for VIPs with clear contractual and relational boundaries: project-oriented and exclusive.•Interdependence between client and supplier only helps project-oriented VIP to reach gain beyond expected benefits.•Familiarity between partners creates the conditions for both expected and non-expected benefits for exclusive VIPs.
This paper explores the imprinting of entrepreneurs' motivations on the practices and processes of enterprises. We investigate the question in the context of creative industries (CIs) as an extreme ...case of entrepreneurial motivations (EMs) prevalence. We analyse the EM of 14 founders of design consultancies. Three EMs emerge: self‐fulfilment, freedom and financial motivation. The qualitative analysis reveals that the founders' EMs at the time of a venture's founding has a lasting impact on the characteristics of the venture (name, processes formalization, decision‐making processes, performance measures and growth strategies). Specifically, founders driven by self‐fulfilment tend to build ventures named after them. In these ventures, processes are informal, decision‐making is centralized, performance measures are based on personal satisfaction and recognition and enterprise growth is restrained. Founders who seek freedom tend to run enterprises with semiformal processes, semicentralized decision‐making, a client satisfaction focus, and slow growth strategies. In contrast, founders with financial motivations tend to create enterprises with formal processes, decentralized decision‐making, financial performance metrics and growth ambitions. By focusing on EM and adopting a holistic approach beyond some characteristics of the venture, we complement the imprinting literature.
In order to keep up with the pace of innovation, military firms have recently launched a series of open innovation (OI) initiatives to search for and integrate external knowledge into their internal ...development process. Adopting OI in such a secretive environment unlocks new possibilities to analyze how firms can pursue openness and secrecy. This article builds on a qualitative research conducted inside a large military firm that has implemented an inbound OI strategy. Relying on multiple case studies and interviews with individual players involved in the firm's OI initiatives, we analyzed how these players deploy secrecy practices when participating to OI projects. They actually combine cognitive practices (aiming at modulating the contextual depth of the knowledge revealed through reframing) with relational practices (aiming at controlling the visibility and exposure of this knowledge). We highlight how these combinations evolve during the lifecycle of OI partnerships. By emphasizing different modes by which individual actors practice secrecy in OI, we contribute to previous research addressing how organizations navigate the paradox of openness. Besides, this study proposes new theoretical insights on the role and features of secrecy practices in innovation activities, and thus contributes to the emerging research field of managerial secrecy.
•Secrecy in open innovation is managed through cognitive and relational practices.•Cognitive practices are about moderating contextual depth of knowledge.•Relational practices are about moderating the visibility breadth of knowledge.•OI players combine secrecy practices to navigate the paradox of openness.
