Design thinking is widely taught as a universal innovation method. Many frameworks were developed in Western contexts. But how does design thinking actually work inside Korean companies?
In a recent paper with Seamus Yu Harte from the Stanford d.school, we examined this question by analyzing 1,117 practitioner quotes from industry lectures given by executives and managers from companies such as LG Electronics, Hyundai Motors, SK Telecom, and Kakao.
About 56% of the quotes matched the well known five themes of design thinking (e.g., user focus, problem framing, visualization, experimentation, and diversity). However, 44% did not fit this framework. Instead, four new themes emerged from the quotes: market opportunity, strategic positioning, product development, and customer engagement. These findings suggest that Korean practitioners extend design thinking beyond early stage ideation to adapt it into a strategic and operational management tool.
Background: Design thinking frameworks developed in Western contexts may not fully capture how these approaches are adapted in different cultural and organizational settings. In South Korea, where businesses tend to be execution focused and hierarchical, the practice of design thinking may evolve in unexpected ways. This study addresses the gap by investigating how Korean professionals interpret and apply design thinking within their unique organizational cultures.
Methods: We conducted a qualitative analysis of 1,117 practitioner quotes collected from 18 guest lectures on design thinking delivered to Korean business school students between 2015 and 2021. Using the Carlgren et al. (2016) five-theme framework as an analytical lens (user focus, problem framing, visualization, experimentation, and diversity), we coded all quotes and identified both aligned and emergent themes.
Results: Findings show that 56% of the quotes aligned with Carlgren et al. five themes, while 44% revealed four new themes: Market Opportunity, Strategic Positioning, Product Development, and Customer Engagement. These emergent themes suggest that Korean practitioners adapt design thinking into a strategic and operational management tool to align with demands like ppalli-ppalli (speed) and Chaebol hierarchy. Furthermore, we propose a layered conceptual model (Mindset, Practice, Technique) to explain how design thinking is institutionalized, finding that Mindset is the least frequent but most essential precondition for organizational change.
Conclusions: The results suggest that Korean professionals adapt design thinking into a layered system that simultaneously operates at the levels of mindset, practice, and technique. This paper contributes one of the most detailed empirical studies of non-Western applications of design thinking, offering insights for scholars and practitioners seeking to navigate culturally specific innovation contexts. This work particularly contributes to cross-cultural design theory by demonstrating the operationalization of design thinking in a manufacturing-heavy economy.
Keywords: Design Thinking, Cross-Culture Adaptation, Organizational Practice, Korean Business Culture, Qualitative Analysis
Stanford’s d.school workshop, Unleash Creativity, offers a unique hands-on approach to learning. During my visit, I could feel the creative energy, from the open second-floor view to the iconic d.school truck inside the building to the this year’s course schedule packed with hands-on activities.
Plate says: The Hasso Plattner Institute of Design at Stanford was established in 2005 to recognize an extraordinary gift from the Hasso Plattner Foundation to inspire teaching and research in design thinking and the creation of a home for the Institute. The Institute is dedicated to the spread of design thinking and the application of its principles to real-world problems. The design and renovations of this facility along with Hasso Plattner’s continued role in championing design thinking around the world were celebrated on May 7, 2010.
In Unleash Creativity, participants jumped straight into exercises without explanation. For instance, instead of talking about ideas, they started by drawing, connecting, and coloring dots. The interesting part is that they only learned why they did each activity afterward, as the instructor, Dustin Liu, explained the purpose and effect. This approach—learning by doing—really made them feel the power of creative expression.
One memorable activity had them listen to others share about someone they admire and then draw that person without talking. This helped them see deeper into one another’s perspectives. Through the carefully designed powerful exercises of listening, sharing, and drawing, they experienced the true power of empathy.
This article outlines the origin and evolution of one of the most influential design thinking perspectives in the Innovation Management discourse. This study addresses two significant criticisms of design thinking, namely, theoretical grounding and construct clarity. It also illustrates how this humanistic and creative design practice transcended into a comprehensive Innovation Management approach, facilitating entrepreneurship and innovation. Our research analyzes the evolution of the design philosophy and practices developed at Stanford University from 1957 to 2005 through document analysis. We identified design qualities that have been consistent over the decades, providing further construct clarity and insights on managing Design- driven Innovation. These design qualities elucidate design thinking as a cognitive process, creative practice, organizational routine, and design culture. They emphasize finding profound needs and problems and translate them into tangible designs, creating value for people. This design philosophy is deeply rooted in humanistic psychology theories, particularly on creativity and human values. Collaborations between psychologists, industrial researchers, and designers created this creative and human- centered design approach, known today as design thinking. This value- driven innovation offers a humanistic perspective on innovation theory and practice. It also offers an Innovation Management schema of design qualities essential for developing Design- driven Innovation capabilities in organizations and educational institutions. We emphasize that developing a creative design culture in which people have the human values, abilities, and confidence to collaboratively identify continuous emerging problems and needs and contribute through tangible designs generates an era of innovation and is essentially innovation management.
Practitioner Points
Design thinking as a step-by-step process with tools prevents fluency in thinking and flexibility in approach, which are essential in Design-driven Innovation.
An essential innovation management task is to develop a design culture and capabilities by freeing teams from emerging blocks imposed by the environment.
In organizations, Design-driven Innovation requires the development of micro-foundation, such as abilities and attitudes & values, and capabilities, such as creative routines and environments of support and psychological safety and freedom.
Innovation managers and educators need to consider essential design qualities when enabling people to design tangible solution for open and complex problems.
