Design thinking: Critical analysis and future evolution🇺🇸 🇬🇧

The importance of design as a source of value creation has been studied for decades. In the late 90s, however, a spe- cific approach in the practice of design achieved a rapid diffusion across organizations: Design Thinking. This is a formal method for creative problem solving characterized by user- centeredness, ideation, and iterative prototyping. The rapid diffusion of Design Thinking in practice has not been coupled with similarly rapid and robust develop- ment of its theoretical underpinnings. Most contributions have been inward- oriented toward a confined commu- nity of scholars; therefore, the scientific discourse on Design Thinking has unfolded in a vacuum— often inde- pendently from other innovation management theories. The consequence has been that Design Thinking is often confused (especially among those new to the field) with the entire practice of design. Subsequently, we still lack an understanding on whether, why, and when Design Thinking contributes to innovation. In this editorial, we discuss the journey to the Special Issue “Design Thinking and Innovation Management: Matches, Mismatches and Future Avenues” that intends to critically reflect and en- rich the scientific debate around Design Thinking. First, we aim at clarifying the distinction between “design” and “Design Thinking.” The former is a practice, to be studied; the latter is a paradigm, that is, a set of specific principles, methods, and tools to practice design. Second, we offer a brief overview of the community that has been investigating Design Thinking, a synthesis of the ten pa- pers included in the Special Issue (distributed across this and the next issue), and show how they contribute to close the theoretical and empirical gaps with innovation studies. Finally, we suggest that the p...