Design Research in Innovation Management: a pragmatic and human‐centered approach

Abstract

This article outlines a pragmatic and human-centered Design Research approach in Innovation Management. This research approach is of particular relevance when investigating Innovation Management under conditions of high uncertainty associated with changing environments and the complexity of transforming organizational architectures and business models. Under conditions of high uncertainty and complexity, research approaches that reduce complexity to specific factors are unsuitable. In contrast, Design Research in Innovation Management permits investigating Innovation Management under these conditions as it enables examining Innovation Management interventions and their impact within real-world messiness. Design Research in Innovation Management empirically examines if the designed intervention provides a satisfactory and meaningful Innovation Management solution. This article provides a guide on how to examine Innovation Management interven-tions and how to generate practical knowledge. This practical knowledge enables practitioners to take action to facilitate innovation, and the approach allows viewing Innovation Management as a design practice. The outlined approach provides a new way to investigate and expand the discourse in the Innovation Management literature by developing practical knowledge in addition to theories and conceptual models.

Accelerated innovation through repurposing: exaptation of design and manufacturing in response to COVID‐19

“…While lessons can be learned in relation to preparedness for future crises, the experience may also be beneficial for ‘normal’ economic activity. Both design capability and manufacturing flexibility are valuable for innovation in conditions of market or technological turbulence (Candi and Beltagui, 2019; Auernhammer, 2020). And this research suggests that they are both enablers of accelerated innovation.…”

“…Under conditions of high uncertainty and change, design is a particularly relevant driver of innovation (Auernhammer, 2020). Design capability can be defined as a collective capability held by an organisation that allows it to deploy a form of design (e.g.…”

Innovation management research methods: embracing rigor and diversity

“…Other papers in this Special Issue challenge prevailing understandings, perceptions, and assumptions about when and how to use quantitative research methods (Faems, 2020) or encourage researchers to focus closely on the temporal construction of innovation phenomena (Ellwood and Horner, 2020). Finally, a number of articles discuss how complementary methodologies and approaches can enrich IM scholars’ toolset by highlighting practical relevance and academy‐industry integration, including two articles on action research (Guertler et al, 2020; Ollilla and Yström, 2020) and one on design research in IM (Auernhammer, 2020).…”

“…At the same time, it is important and necessary to ensure the continued evolution of more traditional and existing methods, both in IM and in other disciplines, as many of these have proved over time that they can deliver rigorous and relevant insights. As the articles in this Special Issue acknowledge, qualitative and participatory approaches based on action research (Guertler et al, 2020; Ollila and Yström, 2020) or design research (Auernhammer, 2020) also promise to deliver deeper insights into IM. In so doing, these approaches can enrich the capacity of IM research to address the rigor‐relevance challenge (Worrell, 2009).…”

Assessing the application of human-centered design to translational research

“…HCD, a pragmatic approach to problem solving that draws from social science methodologies and is widely used in fields such as engineering and computer science, is "a flexible yet disciplined approach to innovation that prioritizes people's needs and concrete experiences in the design of complex systems" (p.1) [10]. It uses a systematic flow of well-structured activities designed to elevate voices that might not be otherwise heard, increase creativity, improve workflow processes, facilitate stakeholder buy-in, and generate more and better solutions to complex problems [11][12][13][14][15][16]. HCD is increasingly used in healthcare research to uncover unmet health needs [17][18][19][20][21], increase patient trust [22], design better interventions [23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31], and improve hospital space, workflows, processes, and policies [32][33][34][35].…”