As previously discussed, creativity is an essential part of design thinking and the design process (Owen, 2006). For this reason the employees‘ design thinking
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potential will be examined in two parts: individual employee creativity and design thinking working style attributes.
2.5.1 Individual Employee Creativity (IEC).
The design process is a creative one; therefore design thinkers should display the qualities of a creative person (Owen, 2006). The individual or employee has many factors affecting their potential creative abilities. A person‘s creative potential is their creative capacity, skills and abilities that the individual possesses (DiLiello &
Houghton, 2008).
This study will focus on attributes that can be changed or adapted such as thinking style or working style (Murphy & Janeke, 2006). According to the thinking styles of the theory of mental self-government, by Sternberg (1988), some characteristics of a person with creative style are higher self-esteem, higher cognitive-developmental levels, openness to experience, and strong sense of purposefulness.
Other empirical studies (Amabile et al., 1996; Shalley et al., 2004; Tierney &
Farmer, 2002) have shown that intrinsic motivation is conducive to creativity.
Amabile and Gryskiewicz (1987) define intrinsic motivation as being self-driven, excited by the work itself, enthusiastic, attracted by the challenge of the problem and not being motivated only by money, recognition or external directives. In their study they found that for R&D scientists, the most frequently mentioned feature of creative behavior was intrinsic motivation. For an organization to maintain creativity it is dependent on maintaining intrinsic motivation (Wongtada & Rice, 2008).
Farmer, Tierney, and Kung-McIntyre (2003) express that creative potential partially consists of personal feelings regarding the ability to be creative; this is called self-efficacy. DiLiello and Houghton (2008) give examples of creative self-efficacy as
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feeling good at conceiving novel ideas, self confidence in the ability to creatively solve problems, being skilled at developing others‘ concepts and demonstrating the ability to solve problems in creative ways. Two additional important aspect of creative potential according to research is having the talent or expertise to do well in one‘s work and possessing the ability to take risks by trying out new ideas (Amabile
& Conti, 1999; DiLiello & Houghton; Oldham & Cummings, 1996; Shalley et al., 2004; Tierney & Farmer, 2002).
Wongtada and Rice (2008) define individual employee creativity (IEC) as an
“perceptions of his/her creativity-related endeavors in the workplace” (p. 545).
Wongtada and Rice give examples of these creativity-related endeavors are seeking new ideas, trying to be very creative within one‘s abilities, learning new skills, and being intrinsically motivated to perform creatively . For example, IEC includes the belief that work is so rewarding that an employee becomes indifferent to special incentives given by management (Rice, 2006). The ability to work creatively in a team is also a predictor of potential creative behavior by the employee because most creative or innovative work is done in teams.
From the literature it can be hypothesized that an employee with a greater number of employee creativity traits will practice design thinking more in the workplace. However, no matter how much creative potential a person has their social-environmental working conditions can greatly influence the degree of his/her creativity both in a negative or positive way (Amabile, 1988; Amabile et al., 1996) The literature (Amabile; Amabile et al.; Farmer et al., 2003; Mumford, 2000;
Wongtada & Rice, 2008) suggests that creative behavior is influenced by workplace contextual factors. The moderating effect of the workplace context is discussed in detail in section 2.6.
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Hypothesis 1: There is a positive relationship between individual employee creativity (IEC) and practised design thinking (PDT).
2.5.2 Individual Design Thinking Working Style (DTWS).
The second item used in this study to assess the potential design thinking of an employee is design thinking working style. There are some commonalities in the literature discussed above on design thinking working styles and attributes. The following is a table that integrates the findings into 16 working styles of a design thinker. This list will assist in the creation of a measure for potential design thinking employees combined with attributes of creativity.
Table 2-6
Integrated Design Thinking Working Styles from Literature
Characteristic Original Title
1. Ability to work with others
Open-minded collaboration (Fraser, 2009) Collaborative working (Martin, 2007a) Affinity for teamwork (Owen, 2007) 2. Integrative thinking
Integrative thinking (Martin, 2007a)
Avoiding the necessity of choice (Owen, 2007) Integral intelligence (Clark & Smith, 2008) 3. Inductive and deductive
reasoning
Inductive and deductive reasoning (Martin, 2005) Divergent and convergent (Bauer & Eagen, 2008)
4. Abductive reasoning
Abductive reasoning (Martin, 2005) Conditioned inventiveness (Owen, 2007) Use of conjectures, daydreaming, inventive and challenge norms, associative thinking (Bauer &
Eagen, 2008)
5. Commitment and Conviction Conviction (Fraser, 2009)
Emotional intelligence (Clark & Smith, 2008)
6. Optimism Tempered optimism (Owen, 2007)
7. Empathetic and human-centered focus
Empathy (Martin, 2007a)
Emotional intelligence (Clark & Smith, 2008) Human-centered focus, environment-centered concern, bias for adaptivity (Owen, 2007) 8. Analytic thinking Self-governing practicality (Owen, 2007)
Analytical thinking (Bauer & Eagen, 2008) 9. Using Jungian ways of knowing
(Thinking, feeling, sensing and intuiting)
Multi-epistemic using a Jungian typology of ways of knowing (Owen, 2007)
Experiential intelligence (Bauer & Eagen, 2008) 10. Preference for complex problems Prefer complex problems (Martin, 2005, 2007a)
Comfortable with constraints (Martin, 2005)
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Characteristic Original Title
Work systematically with qualitative information (Owen, 2007)
Prefer complex problems (Bauer & Eagen, 2008) 11. Working iteratively Iterative working process (Martin, 2005)
12. Ability to visualize
Ability to visualize and ability to use language as a tool (Owen, 2007)
Daydreaming (Bauer & Eagen, 2008) 13. Systemic vision or holistic
thinking
Predisposition toward multi-functionality,
Systemic vision or holistic thinking (Owen, 2007) Thinking systematically (Bauer & Eagen, 2008) Emotional intelligence (Clark & Smith, 2008) 14. Adaptive View of the generalist (Owen, 2007)
15. Working in a playful way Work in a playful way (Bauer & Eagen, 2008) 16. Risk Taking and challenging
rules
Courage (Fraser, 2009)
Challenging Rules (Bauer & Eagen, 2008) Source: Arranged by the author
These items are referred to as design thinking working style measures. It is hypothesized that employees with a greater number of design thinking working styles will practice design thinking more in the workplace. This study will develop a measure using self-perception to understand the relationship between design thinking working styles and practiced design thinking.
Hypothesis 2: There is a positive relationship between design thinking working style (DTWS) and practised design thinking (PDT).