Design thinking 4 business

Design Thinking For Business (DT4B) is an international research collaboration between the House of Innovation at the Stockholm School of Economics, Imperial College London (UK), Politecnico di Milano (Italy), TU Delft (The Netherlands) and Reykjavik University (Iceland).

Vision and Goal

We aspire to become the international reference point for the community of both professionals and researchers intrigued by Design Thinking and interested in realizing its full potential for their organizations.

The rapid, massive diffusion of Design Thinking in practice can help our economic and social systems become more innovative, human-oriented and sustainable. However, this adoption has not been supported by a robust theoretical development. Existing evidence is mainly anecdotal, characterized by vague definitions, blurred concepts and speculative claims.

We aim to overcome this limitation by using sound research methods to investigate the key principles and practices of Design Thinking, to offer an up-to-date picture of Design Thinking application in the industry, and to invite professionals to collectively reflect on its emerging challenges and future developments.

Planned outcomes

We are currently running a survey to collect data about the approaches adopted by consulting firms, design studies and digital agencies, to provide Design Thinking based services to their clients. The countries being investigated are Sweden, United Kingdom, Italy and The Netherlands.

Key themes addressed in the survey include: the characteristics and diffusion of different Design Thinking approaches; the value generated by them to service providers and their clients; the capabilities and attitudes required by each approach.

The data collected will be analyzed, presented and discussed in a report targeting Design Thinking professionals. For the research community, we plan to edit a book as well as a number of scientific articles.

The partners

Imperial College London (UK): Professor Ileana Stigliani

Politecnico di Milano (Italy): Professor Claudio Dell’Era

TU Delft (The Netherlands): Professor Giulia Calabretta

Reykjavik University (Iceland): Professor Marina Candi

Want to know more? Get in touch :)

If you are intrigued by Design Thinking too, if you want to know more about our research and get involved in different ways, please contact us at:

designthinking.hoi@hhs.se

the Researchers

Mattia Bianchi is an associate professor of management at the House of Innovation, Stockholm School of Economics. He regularly teaches new product development and project management in SSE’s MBA and Master programs. His passionate research on design thinking, agile and open innovation has been published in leading journals, such as the Journal of Product Innovation Management, Technovation and Harvard Business Manager.

Fernanda Torre is a visiting instructor to the House of Innovation and teaches Innovation and Entrepreneurship in the Stockholm School of Economics MBA program. She has also been active at Center for Gender Medicine at Karolinska Institutet and Stockholm Resilience Centre at Stockholm University. Her career in innovation management in the private sector ranges from large industry companies to start-ups. Fernanda is a board member of Innovationsledarna (Association for Innovation Management Professionals in Sweden).

Christina Härd is currently enrolled in the M.Sc. in International Business & CEMS MiM at SSE. She holds a Bachelor's degree in Business & Economics from SSE, where she specialised in Management and Organization. Prior professional experience from strategic communication at an international firm, and from journalism.