The Role of Design Thinking in Firms and Management Education

We draw on our experiences as university-level educators in design and management, as well as consulting, to argue that management education has isolated design, specifically design thinking, from traditional MBA curricula—to the detriment of both business schools and firms. Notwithstanding the occasional "new product development" marketing course, we question the widespread practice of segregating design thinking solely for use by so-called "creative professionals." The social bases of this isolation include semantic gaps, conceptual blocks, and social barriers between business disciplines. We unpack design thinking in a concrete, tractable manner and offer concrete suggestions for promoting a shift to design thinking within management education, and in firms. We conclude by mentioning the pros and cons of diverse solutions, including an ad hoc approach, management education programs, teaching problem-driven design thinking, firm-specific executive programs, leveraging in-house design resources, and deploying designers as top managers.