Design thinking and sport for development: enhancing organizational innovation

ABSTRACT

Rationale/purpose: To determine if the field of sport for development (SFD) presents opportunities for the employment of design thinking approaches toward enhancing organizational innovation.

Design/methodology/approach: We undertook a scoping study to determine if and how SFD research and practice aligns with five established themes of design thinking practice.

Findings: Design thinking indicators are present across the breadth of SFD research. A total of 14 SFD articles display total thematic alignment with design thinking practice, particularly in regard to five key indicators of such alignment: (a) deep user understanding, (b) diversity of perspectives, (c) testing for user feedback, (d) futuristic thinking, and (e) bias toward action.

Practical implications: Five key indicators represent logical points of entry for the employment of design thinking in SFD research and practice.

Research contribution: Design thinking has become popular in the broad field of management, but this is the first study of the concept in the sport management domain.

KEYWORDS:

• Design thinking
• sport for development
• sport management
• innovation
• scoping study

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

Greg Joachim http://orcid.org/0000-0002-3920-0427

Nico Schulenkorf http://orcid.org/0000-0002-7235-5340

Katie Schlenker http://orcid.org/0000-0001-9917-8973

Stephen Frawley http://orcid.org/0000-0002-7552-3856

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by an Australian Government Research Training Program Scholarship.