Edinburgh Napier University

  Questions we care about
In recent years, more and more people have started to look to the field of design for inspiring new ways of dealing with innovation challenges. Based on the still growing popularity of Design Thinking in the management field and early success stories of its application in entrepreneurship education, the question we care about is: What can we learn from Design Thinking to enrich entrepreneurship education?
Approach
This paper critically summarizes parts of the Design Thinking literature. Many of the ongoing discussions in Design Thinking show parallels to the current debate of how to best teach entrepreneurship in higher education. Therefore, this paper established conceptual links between these two fields and provides strategies for how to incorporate Design Thinking principles into an entrepreneurship course.
Results
The following nine key concepts from Design Thinking were identified to add value to the discussion about entrepreneurship education: Wicked problems, formalized Design Thinking process models, divergent and convergent thinking, iterations, T-shape, multidisciplinary teams, creative confidence, informed intuition as well as studio learning.
Implications
Design Thinking is a very accessible way of facilitating multidisciplinary learning. It provides entrepreneurship educators with a number of important concepts, tools and methods that may be directly integrated into existing courses. The presented conceptual links between Design Thinking and entrepreneurship education provide new pathways for how to enrich current entrepreneurship education practices.
Value/Originality
This paper aggregates the recent literature on Design Thinking and transfers key principles to the domain of entrepreneurship education.