How is innovation empowered by design thinking for new product development? a case study in Taiwan

ABSTRACT

Innovation is vital for sustainable competitiveness and a process that can be trained and managed. Design thinking is an effective approach that helps create innovative solutions and contributes to new product development (NPD). When applied to NPD, how the involvement and intensity of design thinking offers benefits to firms with distinct organisational cultures remained unclear. This study investigates the effect of the use of design thinking in NPD. A hybrid method approach is adopted. First, 35 senior managers from diverse industries in Taiwan are participated in a set of design thinking workshops hosted by the present study. The participants were interviewed after the workshops to investigate design thinking's influences on organisational creativity capacity. This study highlights two key successful factors to enable an effective NPD by design thinking: 1) clarifying bottlenecks against innovation and 2) establishing an open cooperate culture of innovation. Further, a quantitative study was conducted to validate the proposition, stating that by adopting design thinking, firms can improve their innovation in NPD. The correlation between design thinking and organisational culture by industrial types is examined.

KEYWORDS:

• Creativity
• design thinking
• innovation
• new product development
• organisational culture

Data availability statement

Available based on request.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Informed consent statement

Informed consent was obtained from all subjects involved in the study.

Institutional review board statement

The study was conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki, and approved by the Research Ethics Committee, Research Ethics Centre, Sector of Research and Development, National Taiwan University, Taiwan (ROC) (protocol code 201605EM092).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Kung-Jeng Wang

Kung-Jeng Wang is a professor in the Department of Industrial Management at National Taiwan University of Science and Technology. He received his PhD in industrial engineering from University of Wisconsin – Madison, Madison. His current research interests are in the areas of intelligent systems, service science and supply chain management.

Ya-Hui Chen

Ya-Hui Chen is a PhD Candidate in the School of Management at National Taiwan University of Science and Technology. Her research interests are in the areas of design thinking applications and organisational auditing.

Yi-Chang Lee

Yi-Chang Lee received his PhD from School of Design, University of Leeds. He is an assistant professor in the programme of Oceanic Cultural Creative Design Industries, National Taiwan Ocean University. His research interests are in the areas of design thinking and creative design applications.

Zhi-Ying Lin

Zhi-Ying Lin received his MS from in the Department of Industrial Management at National Taiwan University of Science and Technology. His research interests are in the areas of design thinking and industrial engineering applications.