Perspective: Linking Design Thinking with Innovation Outcomes through Cognitive Bias Reduction

Abstract

“Design thinking” has generated significant attention in the business press and has been heralded as a novel problem‐solving methodology well suited to the often‐cited challenges business organizations face in encouraging innovation and growth. Yet the specific mechanisms through which the use of design, approached as a thought process, might improve innovation outcomes have not received significant attention from business scholars. In particular, its utility has only rarely been linked to the academic literature on individual cognition and decision‐making. This perspective piece advocates addressing this omission by examining “design thinking” as a practice potentially valuable for improving innovation outcomes by helping decision‐makers reduce their individual level cognitive biases. In this essay, I first review the assumptions, principles, and key process tools associated with design thinking. I then establish its foundation in the decision‐making literature, drawing on an extensive body of research on cognitive biases and their impact. The essay concludes by advancing a set of propositions and research implications, aiming to demonstrate one particular path that future research might take in assessing the utility of design thinking as a method for improving organizational outcomes related to innovation. In doing so, it seeks to address the challenge of conducting academic research on a practice that is obviously popular in management circles but appears resistant to rigorous empirical inquiry because of the multifaceted nature of its “basket” of tools and processes and the complexity of measuring the outcomes it produces.