Effects of Design Thinking Training on Dynamic Managerial Capabilities

Despite the wide adoption of design thinking as a human-centered approach to innovation and problem-solving, empirical evidence on its individual-level outcomes is scarce and inconclusive. The article examines the underlying mechanism through which design thinking training influences dynamic managerial capabilities. Based on the dynamic capability literature and the notion of managerial cognition as an underpinning of dynamic managerial capabilities, we propose that creative self-efficacy mediates the relationship between design thinking training and managerial sensing, seizing and transforming capabilities. We test our hypotheses in a quasi-experimental (pretest-posttest) field study in the aviation industry with a control group and a 5-month time lag. The intervention is a two-day design thinking training based on experiential learning. The empirical results demonstrate that creative self-efficacy partially mediates the relationship between design thinking training and managerial sensing and transforming capabilities and fully mediates the relationship between design thinking training and managerial seizing capability. Our study contributes to the design thinking literature by theoretically linking it to the dynamic capability framework and empirically demonstrating its positive effect on individual-level outcomes. Our findings suggest that managers can profit from two-day design thinking training by not only learning design thinking principles and tools but also gaining confidence in their creative ability and enhancing their abilities to identify new opportunities, convert them into profitable businesses and transforming the necessary routines and structures.