Design thinking for social innovation : how does design thinking help social enterprises generate social innovations?

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Design Thinking for Social Innovation:

How does design thinking help social enterprises generate

social innovations?

Master Thesis

Marco Cornetto | 11084901 | marcocornetto@hotmail.it

Faculty of Economics and Business

Supervisor: Dr. Ileana Maris De Bresser

Second reader: Dr. Peter van Baalen

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Preface

This document is written by Marco Cornetto who declares to take full responsibility for the contents of this document. I declare that the text and the work presented in this document is original and that no sources other than those mentioned in the text and its references have been used in creating it. The Faculty of Economics and Business is responsible solely for the supervision of completion of the work, not for the contents.

I would here like to thank my supervisor Ileana de Bresser for her time, valuable inputs, enthusiasm and support throughout the whole thesis period, as well as all the participants who joined the research and shared enthusiasm and knowledge with me during the interviews.

Finally, a special thanks goes to my family, which constantly encouraged and supported me, and provided me with the opportunities to live the life that I want.

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Abstract

This study examines the relationship between design thinking and social innovative outcomes. The present study builds on the literature on social entrepreneurship, social problems, wicked problems, and design thinking. It contributes to our understanding of design thinking applications in the social entrepreneurial field, and provides evidence and reasons why social entrepreneurs and innovators embed such approach in their daily activities. Data was collected through a sample of 8 participants coming from different organizations and industries, interviewed by the researcher on a wide range of topics. Findings suggest that the relationship between design thinking and social innovative outcomes is positive, and that respondents strongly benefit from implementing design thinking principles in social value creation process. Furthermore, differences between conscious and more unconscious uses of design techniques are acknowledged, and the need for additional tools to assess the social impact of a social solution is brought to light.

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1 Introduction

In the recent years, more and more problems in society started to be defined as “social problems”, in light of the multiple stakeholders involved and the repercussions on whole communities. For this reason, tackling social problems has become a priority for a number of entrepreneurs and businesses worldwide, as shown by the case of Specialisterne.

Specialisterne (“The Specialists”, in Danish) is a social company, initially founded in Denmark, where most of the employees have a diagnosis on the autism spectrum, and they work as business consultants on tasks such as software testing, programming and data-entry, both for public and private sectors. The idea for Specialisterne first started when Sonne Thorkil, future chairman of “The Specialist People Foundation” and CEO of Specialisterne, learned that his two years old son Lars was affected by infantile autism, an handicap in the category of the Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Besides actively joining the Danish Autism Association, Thorkil tried to tailor and promote new working environments specifically meant for autistic people, where their specialist skills as consultants could have benefited business and clients, at market terms. Through the observation of behaviors of people with autism, Thorkil was the first in Denmark recognizing their latent talents and turning a mental disorder (traditionally perceived as a potential weakness of the workforce) into a real competitive advantage. With the stated goal of providing jobs to over one million people affected by autism and similar disorders, The Specialist People Foundation soon replicated the Specialisterne concept in many other locations across the world, such as USA, Ireland, Australia, Canada, and United Kingdom.

Specialisterne is just one out of the many businesses established worldwide to address unsolved social issues, determining social change by doing so. In this regard, ‘Social Entrepreneurship’ (S-ENT) has emerged indeed as an important field of practice and research during the last decades, although scholars have not yet found a commonly accepted definition of the topic. The literature provides multiple viewpoints on social entrepreneurship, social enterprises, and social matters in general, and practitioners from the field keep on bringing significant contributions too.

Among them, Tim Brown, CEO and president of IDEO, an international design and consulting firm established in California in 1991, suggests “Design Thinking” as a valuable

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mean to produce social innovations and positive social impact. According to Brown (2010), design thinking is a human-centered approach that applies designers’ practices and methods to create new products and services afield from traditional design. The end users’ struggles and preferences are always kept central throughout the whole innovation process, ensuring deeper understanding of the subject, faster prototyping, and more effective solutions tailored on customers’ needs. Such unconventional problem solving attitude, Brown (2010) claims, can lead to better outcomes for both social businesses and the people they serve, meaning that design thinking addresses social challenges more properly than other approaches.

Although a number of social enterprises, including Specialisterne, already use aspects and tools typical of design thinking, academic literature lacks a substantial knowledge about the relationship between uses of design thinking methodologies and social innovations consequently achieved. Previous research has indeed studied the applications of design thinking for both scientific and business-related innovative outcomes (Liedtka, 2011; Yajima, 2015), but very little was done regarding social entrepreneurial environments. The main contributions in this regard come from the work of Hillgren, Seravalli and Emilson (2011), who principally focused on the concept of participatory design and potential of prototyping for social innovation. Hillgren et al.’s (2011) study addresses however just a limited part of the whole design thinking process, and thus leaves many aspects of the topic still unexplored. Since non-academic sources (i.e. online periodicals and specialized magazines) recently started to dig in detail into this matter, and social entrepreneurs and innovators already embedded design thinking in their operations, it becomes important to develop consistent academic literature. By filling such literature gap, both scholars and practitioners can gain a deeper understanding of design thinking applications in social entrepreneurial fields, and presumably lead to more substantial theoretical and practical knowledge on how to create value for society.

1.1 Problem Definition

The research is conducted to gain further insights into the relationship between design thinking and innovative social outcomes. The following research question will be answered:

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1.2 Academic Relevance

This study will investigate the applications of design thinking techniques within social firms, and the associated benefits encountered during their innovation processes. Although Brown (2010) acknowledges that design thinking can serve as means for addressing systemic problems and achieving systemic solutions, the topic has not yet received considerable research attention. For such reason, this research connects the two concepts and explores their relationship: the objective is to explain how design thinking can affect social businesses’ practices and outcomes. By doing so, the study tries to answer to Brown’s call and develop a theoretical understanding on how social firms implement design thinking while trying to solve social problems, for which reasons, and with what results.

1.3 Social Relevance

Besides adding to academic literature and trying to fill the existing literature gap, the paper provides practitioners of the social entrepreneurial environment with information about design thinking in general, as well as specific insights about its applications in social firms (and related positives). By adopting such social perspective, the study unearths factual knowledge that can help social entrepreneurs and social businesses to employ design thinking principles in their daily operations. However, this research does not deliver any ultimate solution, but valid insights and suggestions about why and how design thinking positively affects social innovation creation.

1.4 Structure of thesis

This study consists of 5 main sections. Chapter 2 provides a literature review and offers a conceptual explanation of the concepts of social entrepreneurship, social innovation, social problem, “wicked” and “tame problems”, and design thinking. At the end of this section, the conceptual model that drives the study is presented. Chapter 3 describes the research design used, especially in terms of data collection method, data analysis method, and development of the interviews. After this, Chapter 4 presents the main findings of the conducted research. Lastly, in Chapter 5 those findings are further discussed in relation to the current literature

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and critical remarks outline. Here, theoretical and practical implications, as well as recommendations for further research are presented.

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2 Literature review

The literature review provides the context for the study, by first introducing the concepts of social entrepreneurship, social enterprise, and social innovation. In this regard, the relationship between social innovation and social problems is further explained. Section 2.3 then links to social problems, and provides an additional framework of analysis: the difference between “tame” and “wicked problems”, as well as the similarities between “social problems” and “wicked problems” are here discussed. Lastly, design thinking principles and tools are reviewed, by looking at both academic and practitioner sources.

2.1 Social entrepreneurship: contrasting views in the literature

In the last decade, social entrepreneurship has emerged as new relevant discipline and field of study, although no unified definition has been reached yet (Short, Moss & Lumpkin, 2009; Dacin, Tracey & Dacin, 2011). As a matter of fact, most scholars focused on conceptual over empirical research (Dacin, Matear & Dacin, 2010), and tried to define the concept of social entrepreneurship under different perspectives and domains, such as not-for-profits, for-profits, the public sector, and combinations of the three (Short et al. 2009). By doing so, multiple and contrasting definitions have been proposed, with consequent imprecision and confusion on the topic. Dacin et al. (2010) review the literature on social entrepreneurship and put together the most influential definitions of the subject, in order to have a better understanding of the existing contrasting views. As a result, four key areas of focus were observed: the characteristics of the individual social entrepreneur, the sphere of operation, the processes and resources employed, and the final mission.

Tan, Williams, and Tan (2005) and Light (2006) are among those who focus on the characteristics of individual entrepreneurs to explain social entrepreneurship as a whole. According to Tan et al. (2005), a social entrepreneur is a legal person that attempts to make profits for society (or a segment of it) by innovating, accepting risks, and involving society (or segment of it) while doing so. Light (2006) openly criticizes the biases and problems of such a narrow focus on individual characteristics, and introduces the idea that scholars should not see social entrepreneurship just as a result of individual actions, but rather as a combination of those actions with the external conditions of economic, political, social, and organizational environments. Although Light (2006) moves steps forward in driving the focus away from

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individual entrepreneurs, he eventually does not provide a new, consistent definition of the subject.

Within the second key area of analysis, Lasprogata & Cotten (2003) and Dart (2004) relegate social entrepreneurship inside the boundaries of the non-profit sectors. Such decision represents a major restriction and limitation to their studies, since social entrepreneurship can be found in other sectors too. As an example, Austin, Stevenson and Wei-Skillern (2006: p. 2) stress the fact that social entrepreneurship is an activity occurring “within or across the non-profit, business, or government sectors”. Similarly, Yunus (2008: p. 22) claims that social entrepreneurship can be “economic or non-economic, for-profit or not-for-profit”. However, both Austin et al. (2006) and Yunus (2008) fail in providing further information about how this “innovative initiative” takes place or it is carried out, meaning that their contributions cannot be used as a theoretical foundation for the current paper.

As mentioned above, few authors try also to explain social entrepreneurship in terms of processes and resources used. Among those, Thompson, Alvy, and Lees (2000: p. 328) state that social entrepreneurs “gather together the necessary resources, such as people, money, and premises” to create a change in society. Later, both Peredo and McLean (2006) and Sharin and Lerner (2006) embrace this framework, and emphasize that social entrepreneurs usually seek within their networks for additional assets to carry on their social activities. Although meaningful and promising according to some scholars, such contributions may lead to debates on how the social business is established or which specific, primary activities are those that actually cause social entrepreneurship to happen (Dacin et al., 2010).

Lastly, another approach used in the literature focuses on the primary mission of social entrepreneurial activities. In this regard, it is important to consider the economic outcomes as part of the mission, since social value creation and economic profits do not necessary exclude one another (Dacin et al., 2011). As an example, Harding (2004) claims that social businesses typically reinvest their economic surpluses to address a certain social purpose, instead of redistributing profits among stakeholders and owners. Again, Hibbert, Hogg and Quinn (2005) strengthen the idea that social enterprises generate profits for the benefit of certain disadvantaged parts of a community. Although the notion of creating social value is a common theme across most of the social entrepreneurship definitions (Dacin et al., 2010), the conceptual confusion around the topic seems to remain too strong to produce significant

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progresses in theory development (Dacin et al., 2010; Short et al., 2009; Choi & Majumdar, 2014).

Given this overview, how do we move forward in defining social entrepreneurship? And under which perspective should we analyze the topic? The next paragraph offers a potential framework to answer these questions.

2.2 Social entrepreneurship as an “essentially contested concept”

As seen in the previous section, scholars and practitioners seem to be far from reaching an agreement on what social entrepreneurship really means (Dacin et al., 2010; Dacin et al., 2011). Despite acknowledging this state of affairs, numbers of authors remain stuck within traditional frameworks of analysis, and end up adding to the literature nothing but biased definitions of social entrepreneurship. In order to end such a lengthy dispute, Choi and Majumdar (2014) recently propose to look at social entrepreneurship through the lenses of “essentially contested concept” theory.

Walter Bryce Gallie proposed the theory of essentially contested concepts back in 1956, by explaining that concepts such as “art” are difficult to be univocally defined, and thus disputes on their actual meanings can never really be settled. The essentially contested concept framework allows to recognize, understand, and reason about such concepts whose use would otherwise lead to endless debates about their proper definition (Collier, Hidalgo & Maciuceanu, 2006; Choi & Majumdar, 2014). The seven key criteria of essentially contested concepts are: (1) appraisiveness, (2) internal complexity, (3) various describability, (4) openness, (5) aggressive and defensive uses, (6) original exemplar, (7) progressive competition.

In their paper, Choi and Majumdar (2014) demonstrate why social entrepreneurship can be considered an essentially contested concept, providing literature-based evidences that comply with the seven conditions of essential contestedness. Among those criteria, the internal complexity of essentially contested concepts becomes extremely relevant for the current study, since it allows the researcher to identify various components of the concept without prescriptively describing it. Essentially contested concepts are indeed internally complex since “made of different parts or features” (Gallie, 1956: p. 172), which together constitute the

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concept cluster. By building on past literature findings and combining different frameworks, Choi and Majumdar (2014) suggest that the concept of social entrepreneurship consists of five major components.

 Social value creation: creation of social value as a result of having a social mission, addressing social issues and problems, and tackling social needs to increase social wealth.

 The social entrepreneur: the entrepreneur him/herself, independently from his/her individual characteristics and skills.

 The social entrepreneurial organization: SE organization that can have diverse forms such as non-profit, for-profit, or hybrid forms and, because of that, can be part of either the third, private, or public sector.

 Market orientation: orientation towards efficient and effective use of resources, self-sufficiency of the organization, and a general “business-like” attitude.

 Social Innovation: commonly seen as the activity that leads to social change and social value creation.

Through the theory of essentially contested concepts, the authors succeed in conceptualizing social entrepreneurship as a cluster concept, whose sub-concepts represent the defining properties of the cluster concept itself (Gaut, 2000; Choi & Majumdar, 2014). Thanks to this new conceptual tool, providing a unique definition of the subject is no longer needed, and researchers can instead focus on in-depth investigations for each sub-concept. By accepting the essentially contested concept theory as a way to explain social entrepreneurship, the current study embraces the new avenue suggested by Choi and Majumdar (2014), and moves a step forward from traditional literature by addressing the relationship between social innovations and social problems. Since the social innovation represents indeed the activity through which social value is created and social problems addressed, it is particularly relevant to analyze how those two topics are linked together.

2.3 Social innovation and social problems

As discussed so far, social entrepreneurs aim to initiate social change and create social value (Dacin et al., 2010). In order to do so, they identify and target specific social problems, and try to solve them through innovative activities (Dacin et al., 2011; Phillips, Lee, Ghobadian,

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O’Regan & James, 2015). This said, what is the relationship between social innovations and social problems? How are the two concepts linked together? In the current section, the term “social innovation” is examined by looking at existing literature, and then its connection to social problems is addressed.

Social innovation has received great attention by academics and scholars during the last decade. Unlike social entrepreneurship, social innovation seems to have a commonly agreed meaning, although literature offers slightly different definitions of the topic. For instance, Mumford (2002: p. 253) defines social innovation as such activity that generates and implements “new ideas about social relationships and social organization”, while Maclean, Harvey and Gordon (2012: p. 750) see social innovation as a “potentially system-changing” activity that promotes community wellbeing and environmental sustainability. Again, Cajaiba-Santana (2014: p. 49) states that social innovation is a “collective creation of new legitimated social practices aiming at social change”, similarly to Shaw’s (2013) description of social innovation as process for social purposes.

Although those definitions emphasize the role of social innovations as inducing social change (Choi & Majumdar, 2014), they do not explicitly link social innovation to social problems. In this regard, Chell, Nicolopoulou and Karatas-Ozkan (2010) fill the gap and claim that both the social problem and the innovative way used to address it are the core drivers of social entrepreneurship. According to this description, social innovations represent both the process and the outcome of innovative, entrepreneurial activities pointing at social problems. But what is exactly a social problem?

Literature on social problems has long being based on Hart’s (1923) studies, and the definition of social problems does not seem to have changed much ever since then. According to Hart (1923: p. 349), a social problem is indeed “a problem which actually or potentially affects large numbers of people in a common way so that it may best be solved by some measure or measures applied to the problem as a whole rather than by dealing with each individual as an isolated case, or which requires concerted or organized human action.” Examples of social problems include economic problems (i.e. poverty, unemployment, invalidity), health problems (i.e. span of life, living conditions below the standards, access to health systems), political and socio-psychological problems (i.e. crime, racism,

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marginalization of minority groups), and educational problems (i.e. access to education, values and ethical principles transmitted).

The work of Hart (1923) has been extremely valuable in drawing academic attention to societal problems, and research on the topic has seen his contribution as an academic pillar ever since then. However, the article offers no practical guideline about how to concretely solve social problems, and provides only few theoretical insights that could help us conceptualize their intrinsic complexity. Also, the notion that such problems can “be solved by some measure or measures applied to the problem as a whole” (Hart, 1923: p. 349) has been recently brought into question. Although it can be argued that addressing social problems as isolated cases may be more costly and less efficient - given their magnitude and the amount of stakeholders affected - , no academic evidence has confuted the contrary, leaving the door open to multiple interpretations. In the meanwhile, practitioners still seek practical guidance on how to approach similar societal issues in their daily work.

Because of their multifaceted nature and the difficulty in developing appropriate effective solutions, social problems need to receive a greater critical consideration (Shaw, 2013), and academics started to dig into the topic to some extent. Relevant contributions came from the research in the field of design studies conducted by Rittle and Webber (1973) and Buchanan (1992), who brought to light the concepts of “tame” and “wicked” problems, and underlined the theoretical differences between them. Such works do offer a starting point on how to conceptualize social problems and how to approach them, and additional academic insights could be built from there. Thus, in order to obtain a better conceptual understanding of the notion of social problems, and so extend the existing literature on the topic, these works on tame and wicked problem will be discussed in the following section.

2.4 “Tame” and “Wicked” Problems

Horst Rittel first used the term “wicked problem” in the early 1960s, during one of his lectures at the University of California Architecture Department, but Churchman (1967) eventually introduced it to the literature with its modern sense, by discussing the moral responsibility of not taming parts of the whole wicked problem. Later on, Rittel and Webber (1973) formally described the concept of wicked problem and provided a better explanation of its deeper meaning. Throughout their dissertation, Rittel and Webber (1973) define indeed

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wicked problems as ill-defined, ill-formulated problems, with confused information and ramifications in the whole society, and multiple stakeholders involved. Because of such a lack of clarifying traits, societal problems are usually considered as wicked, whereas problems faced by scientists and engineers are mostly seen as “tame”. As a matter of fact, tame problems are univocally definable, and have non-ambiguous information, clear and well-known logics of approach, and findable solutions. However, as Pacanowsky (1995) recalls, these characteristics do not make tame problems easy to be solved.

The core difference between the two categories of problems relies instead on the internal wickedness and complexity of wicked problems, and on the fact that no single best approach to tackle them can be found (Head & Alford, 2015). Given the overlap between wicked and social problems (explained below), Hart’s (1923) proposed “best way” of solving societal issues seems to be here brought into question: for this reason, additional theoretical perspectives are needed to better understand the nature of social problems.

Later in their paper, Rittel & Webber (1973) enumerate ten distinguishing properties that wicked problems share, allowing practitioners to more easily acknowledge and recognize them. Such properties are:

1. There is no definitive formulation of a wicked problem: the information needed to understand a problem depends on how one wants to solve it, meaning that there is no unique way to define and look at a wicked problem.

2. Wicked problems have no stopping rule: the stopping point depends on external factors, and not on the achievement of the best solution – since, by definition, a best solution cannot exist for wicked problems. The problem-solver usually stops when he/she considers his/her proposed solution to be “good enough” (although not optimal yet).

3. Solutions to wicked problems are not true-or-false, but good-or-bad: no objective criteria of evaluations can be found for wicked problems, so judgments and assessments are expressed as “good/bad”, “better/worse”, “satisfying” or “good enough”.

4. There is no immediate and no ultimate test of a solution to a wicked problem: any solution to wicked problems generates numbers of consequences over an extended

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period of time, the scale of which consequences makes it impossible to fully appraise the solution itself.

5. Every solution to a wicked problem is a “one-shot operation”, without trial-and-error opportunities: with wicked problems, every implemented solution is consequential and leaves “traces” that affect people’s lives irreversibly.

6. Wicked problems do not have an enumerable set of potential solutions: it is a matter of judgment to wonder whether a set of thought possible solutions should be enlarged or not and, if so, the process can go over and over again.

7. Every wicked problem is essentially unique: although sometimes wicked problems can look similar to each others, they always have certain characteristics or additional properties that make them unique.

8. Every wicked problem can be considered to be a symptom of another problem: every wicked problem is linked to another one, either as a symptom or as an effect of a “higher level” one.

9. The existence of a discrepancy representing a wicked problem can be explained in numerous ways: the modes of reasoning within wicked problems are much richer than those permissible in the scientific discourse.

10. The planner has no right to be wrong: similarly to point (5), there is no tolerance of experiments that fail.

In light of the above, social problems seem to perfectly fit in the category of wicked ones. However, does the literature agree on that? The answer is “yes”, since different scholars emphasized connections and similarities among the two. For instance, Rittel and Webber (1973: p. 161) themselves claim that it is impossible to “refuse to recognize the inherent wickedness of social problems”. Similarly, Camillus (2008: p. 100) underlines the “social complexity of wicked problems”, while Head and Alford (2015: p. 714) claim that “most major public policy problems are wicked”, by mentioning poverty, crime, child abuse, and urban decay as social issues characterized by internal wickedness. Coyne (2005: p. 8) even suggests broadening the meaning of wicked problems, stating that “socially-decided solutions” for tame problems implicitly turn those problems into wicked ones, meaning that all the problems end to be wicked. Although the last reinterpretation of the concept may seem extreme, and for such reason it will not be taken as a foundation for the current study, academics generally agree that social problems and wicked ones are essentially the same.

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Also Buchanan (1992) brings his own contribution to existing literature on wicked problems, claiming that design has much to deal with such wickedness. In his own words (Buchanan, 1992: p. 16), design problems are “indeterminate and wicked because design has no special subject matter of its own apart from what the designer conceives it to be”, a statement that well matches with property (1) mentioned above. Again, the author states (1992: p. 18) that “designers conceive and plan what does not yet exist, and this occurs in the context of the indeterminacy of wicked problems”, suggesting that a design-driven approach is best for addressing wicked problems and, as such, social problems. But what exactly is a design-driven approach, also known with the name of “design thinking”?

2.5 Design Thinking

The term design thinking has gained momentum and popularity over the past decade, among academics as well as organizations (Kimbell, 2011). Although a unique definition is still missing, design thinking is commonly perceived as a human-centered approach to problem solving, in contrast to those driven by technology or organizational internal competences (Kimbell, 2011; Liedtka, 2014). Many practitioners, including IDEO’s chief executive officer Tim Brown, further suggest that design thinking is a way of bringing designers’ principles, approaches, methods, and tools to fields afar from more traditional ones. As a matter of fact, design activities have long been confined within the boundaries of architecture and engineering, and associated with learning and testing solutions to “wicked” design problems (Rittel, 1973; Beckman & Barry, 2007). Such attitude, however, was soon acknowledged as potentially beneficial to other fields too, including information technology (IT) and business management (Dorst, 2011), turning “design thinking” into a cross-industry, problem-solving methodology.

In its core essence, design thinking is an iterative process that aims at “changing existing situations into preferred ones” (Simon, 1996: p. 111). Such process moves from gathering insights about a specific problem and those affected by it, to idea generation, testing, and final implementation (Kimbell, 2011). Among the theoretical models scholars and designers proposed over time to picture this process, Liedtka’s (2011) four-step model recently found large consensus in the academic literature, and thus it will be employed in the current paper. In her book “Designing for Growth”, Liedtka (2011) divides indeed the design process into four stages that correspond to four basic questions:

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1. “What is?” phase, which explores current reality and seeks to gain a deep understanding of customers’ lives, struggles, and “status quo” in general;

2. “What if?” phase (sometimes called “ideation”), which envisions opportunities and translates the insights collected to new possibilities to pursue;

3. “What wows?” phase, during which the concepts previously developed are culled down to a manageable number, and designers create “low-fidelity” prototypes to rapidly improve the ideas;

4. “What works?” phase, in which the product/service is actually launched and brought to the real world.

Besides building on Kimbell’s (2011) previous research, the stages outlined above are also in line with Dorst’s (2011) work on the nature of design thinking. As a matter of fact, Dorst (2011) underlines that designers investigate into “themes” or clusters of problems, and then “adopt a (coherent) working principle” (2011: p. 525) in order to address a given issue and create value. Through her model, Liedtka (2011) provides a structured guidance on how to make it happen.

By moving a step closer to more concrete aspects of design thinking, Liedtka (2011) enlists ten tools designers use at different moments of the process to address wicked problems (Figure 1). Such tools are the following:

1. Visualization: considered a “meta-tool” applicable at every stage, it is based on the idea that visual imagery fosters cooperation and understanding in work processes; 2. Journey Mapping: it allows designers to “follow the customers home” and understand

moments, touch-points, and difficulties users experience in specific situations;

3. Value Chain Analysis: it helps identify the ways to create value for end-clients by analyzing both internal capabilities and resources of (existing and potential) partners; 4. Mind Mapping: it is the moment when patterns are found in the raw data collected up

until this moment;

5. Brainstorming: group creativity technique used to generate numbers of ideas;

6. Concept Development: thanks to this tool, the output of brainstorming sessions is taken into further examination and organized in more robust and structured conceptual clusters;

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7. Assumption Testing: it is a screening process where assumptions are articulated and the attractiveness of a new business concept assessed;

8. Rapid Prototyping: at this moment, concepts are turned into something concrete enough for stakeholders to feel and evaluate the concept, and thus it is used by designers to learn rather than test (since future improvements have to be done);

9. Customer Co-creation: by directly engaging and co-creating with customers, designers here reduce the intrinsic risk of any new business initiative and try to better define the concepts developed;

10. Learning Launch: this tool is used by designers to concretely launch the new product or service in the market, test it, and check whether it is valuable for clients or not.

Figure 1. Design Thinking tools unfolded (Liedtka, 2011).

Through her model, Liedtka (2011) provides concrete approaches on how to engage with end-users, build empathy, deal with uncertainties, generate ideas, and proceed to effective action. Because of similar traits, design thinking is seen as a valuable framework for businesses of all kinds (Kimbell, 2011). This is especially true for social firms, since design approaches have been recognized as important and powerful instruments for social innovation (Hillgren, Seravalli & Emilson, 2011). At this point, the next section is needed to provide an overview of the topics analyzed so far, and explain what the current study aims to unearth.

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2.6 Conceptual Model

As discussed in the previous sections, the concept of social entrepreneurship has received great attention by academics but still lacks a univocal and agreed definition (Short et al., 2009; Daci et al., 2011). For this reason, Choi and Majumdar (2014) apply the theory of “essentially contested concepts” to the one of social entrepreneurship, and so offer a brand new framework with which to understand the subject. According to Choi and Majumdar (2014), social entrepreneurship can indeed be broken up into five different components, namely social value creation, social entrepreneur, social entrepreneurial organization, market orientation, and social innovation. Among them, a social innovation is the activity through which social problems are addressed and later solved, and thus the link between social innovations and social problems represents the core of social entrepreneurship, as Chell et al. (2010) claim. Such societal problems, multifaceted and ill-defined by nature, have been repeatedly considered “wicked problems” by scholars, in contrast to those described as “tame” ones. Given the wickedness of social problems, and the fact that design thinking is theoretically considered to be the best approach to address “wicked” problems (Buchanan, 1992), the actual application of design thinking in social entrepreneurship cannot go unnoticed.

This being said, the aim of the study is to dig into social entrepreneurial practices, and understand how social entrepreneurs themselves understand social, “wicked” problems, how they approach and deal with them, and if and how Liedtka’s (2011) design thinking tools are used to generate social innovations.

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3 Research Methodology

In order to answer the research question “How does design thinking help social enterprises generate social innovations?” an appropriate research design had to be chosen. Between quantitative and qualitative approaches, the latter one was preferred for several reasons. First, the link between design thinking and social innovative outcomes had to be analyzed rather than tested, since no academic theory about this subject had been developed yet. In order to do that, the researcher had to address questions such as “how” and “when” social innovators adopt design thinking techniques, and for which reasons. For exploratory studies as such, qualitative methods usually have to be preferred, since able to ensure greater flexibility and openness, and to more effectively gather insights for later new theory developments (Silverman, 1997). Because of its orientation towards discovery, qualitative research enables indeed the researcher to gain a deep understanding of the topic and to unravel the logics behind processes, decisions, and outcomes (Reichardt & Cook, 1979). Moreover, since the application of design thinking principles to social entrepreneurial activities seems to be relatively new and yet unexplored, qualitative research was chosen to describe phenomena in a more accurate and detailed way, in line with Merriam’s (2002) suggestions. Lastly, the relationship between design thinking attitudes and social outcomes is hardly quantifiable or measurable with numbers, meaning that more qualitative information had to be found: in light of this, the researcher turned into the primary instrument for data collection, coherently to qualitative research distinctive features (Crewsell, 1994; Merriam, 2002).

3.1 Data Collection

According to Merriam (2002), a researcher can choose among eight different conceptual types of qualitative research, which are: (1) basic interpretative qualitative study, (2) phenomenology, (3) grounded theory, (4) case study, (5) ethnographic study, (6) narrative analysis, (7) critical qualitative research, and (8) postmodern research. In order to explain the nature of design thinking methodologies, social outcomes, and the existing relationship between them, features of (1) basic interpretative qualitative studies, (4) case studies and (6) narrative analyses were combined and employed throughout the research. Merriam (2002, p. 7) considers basic interpretative qualitative studies an optimal solution for inductive research, and defines them as a way to “discover and understand a phenomenon, a process, the perspectives and worldviews of the people involved, or a combination of these”. On the other

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hand, case studies usually focus on one specific event, process or phenomenon, with the aim of providing in depth understanding of the unit of analysis. Specifically, the current paper addresses and analyzes a considerable number of cases, meaning that the structure of this its in line with those of multiple-case studies. Lastly, narrative analyses work best to show or discuss people’s experiences and life narratives, and portray the context of certain facts while doing so. In light of the characteristics mentioned above, the current study can be considered as a thought combination of these three research typologies. Although the research is mainly inductive, it also contains features of deductive studies, given the fact that it defines beforehand the different design thinking tools, and examines whether social entrepreneurs and innovators use such tools (and how).

In terms of data collection strategy, documents and interviews were used to find information relevant to the stated research question. First, available written and visual documents (e.g. company websites, publications, news articles, blogs, photographs, videos) were used to collect secondary data, with the goal of understanding the social problem tackled by a specific company, the social solution implemented, and the background stories behind each business. Such insights helped the researcher to later define and articulate the interviews.

Once secondary sources were fully consulted and analyzed, semi-structured interviews were conducted to gather primary data. This kind of interviews was preferred over highly structured or unstructured ones, because in exploratory studies interviewees need freedom to add information not covered in the questions, and provide additional opinions, examples, or details with limited constraints. Specifically, the interviews aimed to get a grasp of how each social enterprise was founded and with which declared mission, and then to explore in detail how design thinking techniques were implemented during the innovation process. With an approximate duration between 30 and 45 minutes each, the researcher conducted the interviews either face-to-face or via Skype, and tape-recorded them with the permission of the counterpart. Same examples of the questions asked are: “how would you describe a social problem?”, “how would you define a social innovation in general?”, “how did you come up with the idea for solving the social challenge your company is addressing?”. A sample of the interview questions can be found in Appendix A.

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3.2 Research Context and Participants

In section 2.3 the concept of “social problem” was introduced, and few examples provided. In the current work, only one social problem was addressed because of two reasons. First, resource and time constraints limited the potential number of social challenges to investigate. Moreover, not all the social entrepreneurs claimed to be willing to be interviewed, and thus decisions had to be taken accordingly. In this sense, given such restrictions, the researcher just focused on companies dealing with the unrest of minority groups, excluding those addressing issues like hunger, climate change, illegal migration, crime, racism, etc. By examining social enterprises with a similar mission, the researcher was able to compare their design thinking processes and find patterns and analogies in a more consistent way. Such comparisons would have indeed had less explanatory power if firms from completely diverse working environments were picked.

Among many social innovators and social entrepreneurial activists coming form different countries and fields, a total of eight respondents were chosen and then interviewed. Those interviews were conducted with the following respondents: Didi Aaslund and Floor Nagler (Founders of “No Mad Makers” Project), Lisanne de Bakker (Project Manager at “ProPortion Foundation”), Davide Brolati founder of “Centro Apolloni”), Lorenzo di Ciaccio (Co-founder of “Pedius”), Tania Laden (Co-(Co-founder of “Livelyhoods”), Zakia Moulaoui (Founder of “Invisible - Edinburgh”), Thorkil Sonne (Founder of “Specialisterne” and “Ashoka” member), Jacqueline van Lent (Co-founder of “Mode met een Missie”). The eligible profiles were first identified within the social entrepreneurial environment, and later approached via email. The final sample well matched the characteristics sought, given the use and familiarity with design thinking tools, and the successful outcomes accomplished in the social entrepreneurial environment. Brief descriptions of each company are provided below.

“No Mad Makers” Project (NL/GR)

On the isle of Lesvos (Greece), refugees are taught how to turn discarded boats and lifejackets into backpacks through bag-making workshops. The project, called “No Mad Makers” and launched by two Dutch students in February 2016, is part of Odyssea, a non-profit organization that seeks to help migrants in Greece. By teaching similar skills, No Mad Makers aims to involve refugees in the Greek community and to make them active and productive again.

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ProPortion Foundation (NL/CO)

ProPortion Foundation is an Amsterdam-based company that seeks to realize social changes in developing and underdeveloped communities. At the moment, ProPortion is addressing social challenges in Bangladesh, Colombia and Kenya, and actively promoting social entrepreneurship thanks to design thinking methodologies. For the current research, only the “Legbank” project was studied and analyzed. The goal of this initiative is to provide affordable prostheses to low-income amputees in Colombia, and fostering the creation of Colombian social enterprises to tackle this issue.

Centro Apolloni (IT)

Founded in Alta Villa Vicentina (Italy) in 1999, Centro Apolloni is a cultural center for the arts, offering courses and workshops ranging from dance to music to fitness and wellbeing. The project was first launched to tackle the social unrest of children and youth living in the territory. Ever since then, Centro Apolloni increased the number and typologies of courses offered, and provided educational experiences to children with disabilities, vulnerable youth, and “borderline kids”.

Pedius (IT)

Pedius is an Italian social firm that has increasingly received attention and appreciation at both national and international levels. Starting from 2012, Pedius launched in the market a piece of software that allows deaf people to make and receive phone calls, a disruptive innovation in the distant communication landscape. Lately, Pedius has joined forces with Telecom, the biggest provider of distant communication services in Italy.

Livelyhoods (USA/KE)

Founded in 2010 by Tania Laden and Maria Springer, Livelyhoods seeks to create work for young unemployed people in the slums of Kenya. The project begun in the urban slums of Kawangware, and provided training to 227 young people, 84 of which received full-time jobs afterwards. Thanks to a successful crowdfunding campaign and support by investors and institutions, Livelyhoods is constantly expanding and causing positive social changes in the whole country.

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Invisible – Edinburgh (FR/SCT)

This unconventional project employs homeless and formerly homeless people as tour guides in the streets of Edinburgh (Scotland). The idea takes inspiration from Shedia, Greek street paper, and other experiences as volunteer of Zakia Moulaoui, French founder of Invisible – Edinburgh. The project was launched at the beginning of 2016, and immediately received attention by BBC news.

Specialisterne (DK)

Torkhil Sonne founded Specialisterne after his 3 years old son was given the diagnosis of “infantile autism”. The Danish social enterprise aims to create new possibilities for people with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) and to integrate them in the workforce. Specialisterne is considered one of the most successful cases of social innovation, given its international reach (besides Denmark, the company is now active in USA, UK, Australia, Brazil, and Canada among the others) and the support of “Ashoka”, largest network of social entrepreneurs worldwide.

Mode met een Missie (NL)

Mode met een Missie is a fashion company, based in The Netherlands, that employs vulnerable and unemployed women to produce dresses and clothes. Participants in the workshops and sewing activities are usually distant from the labor market because of psychiatric problems, learning disabilities, addiction problems or unstable situations. The company, founded in 2005, has four different ateliers across Holland.

Given the international profiles of these businesses, most of the interviews were conducted in English, apart from those with “Pedius” and “Centro Apolloni”, conducted in Italian and translated into English afterwards.

3.3 Data Analysis

According to Maxwell (2004: p.95), “any qualitative study requires decisions about how the analysis will be done”, and therefore choosing an appropriate design for the analysis becomes crucial for the overall validity of the research. The researcher took into account Maxwell’s (2004) claims to better shape methods and processes through which collected data were analyzed.

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First, brief data analyses were conducted immediately after each interview, in order to find new keywords, emerging topics, or to check whether themes mentioned by previous respondents were recalled or not. The notes taken during the interviews were used for such purpose, and especially for the researcher to better assimilate the concepts time by time. Afterwards, the interviews were transcribed and sent back to the interviewees for accuracy checks and further improvements. In this way, the risks of errors and misunderstandings were dramatically reduced.

After this phase, a more comprehensive analysis system was implemented. In order to conduct an efficient comparative analysis among the social firms studied, the interview transcriptions were analyzed by using NVivo. Here, the researcher combined features of deductive and inductive approaches and eventually developed a codebook, whose complete details can be found in Appendix B. At first, three “selective codes” (namely: “social problem”, “social innovation”, “design thinking”) were derived from the academic literature on social entrepreneurship and design thinking, and used to separately categorize cluster concepts investigated. Subcategories (or “axial codes”) were also defined for each selective code, and subsumed as follows:

Category: Social Problem

 Subcategory 1: Definition of “social problem” in general  Subcategory 2: Type of “social problem” addressed

 Subcategory 3: Characteristics of “social problem” addressed

Category: Social Innovation

 Subcategory 1: Definition of “social innovation” in general  Subcategory 2: Type of “social innovation” created

 Subcategory 3: Characteristics of “social innovation” created

Category: Design Thinking

 Subcategory 1: Human-centered approach  Subcategory 2: Traditional design thinking tools  Subcategory 3: Missing design thinking tools

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Lastly, the information emerged during the data analysis led to the identification of several “open codes” for each subcategory described above. Such coding process allowed the researcher to acknowledge similarities among the different interviews, as well as recurrent themes and patterns. Specifically, characteristics of design thinking applications for social innovations were brought to light, such as types of tools used by respondents, reasons behind those uses, outputs obtained, and so forth. Secondary data were analyzed in the same way with NVivo, and integrated with those coming from the interviews.

Even though the study is limited to few social innovations and related business cases, it can still provide useful insights for future research in both design thinking and social entrepreneurial fields.

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4 Research Findings

This chapter presents the main findings of the data analysis. As explained in the previous section, eight semi-structured interviews were conducted with social entrepreneurs and social innovators, and several topics were covered and discussed. In order to present such results, the same logical flow used in the literature review is here adopted again. Firstly, the general concept of social innovation is analyzed by looking at the respondents’ different perspectives. In this section, individual innovations created by the interviewees are also explained. Secondly, the social problems addressed by the interviewees are described, and general characteristics of social problems provided as well.

Lastly, the third section investigates how design thinking principles and tools are applied in each of the cases studied, how participants evaluated this method and what additional tools may improve it.

4.1 Social Innovation

During the interviews all participants were asked to explain what they consider a social innovation to be, and if their projects and activities could be seen as socially innovative too. Interestingly, only half of the respondents answered to the first question, whereas the others immediately focused on the second one as a way to address both the queries. Such fact may suggest that participants could not frame the theoretical concept of social innovation, although they know how to realize one in practice.

Among the interviewees, Lorenzo Di Ciaccio (“Pedius”) provided a sharp definition of social innovation, claiming that a social innovation is “a pattern or configuration, either technological or related to the business model, that solves social problems in a new and previously not conceived way”. Such statement well matches with the solution created by Pedius: the company applied a mature and fully developed technology of voice recognition to distant communication systems for deaf people. A similar, comprehensive answer was offered by Lisanne De Bakker, Project Manager at “ProPortion Foundation”. According to her words, an innovation could be either a technological advancement or an application of older principles, methodologies, and ways of doing things in a new context, while the “social” part of it stands in addressing people and communities’ needs. De Bakker also suggests that “with design thinking and creative thinking, it is quite rare to come out with something radically

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new”: in her opinion, most of the social innovations created by using such approaches are indeed combinations of new and older principles in previously unexplored contexts.

The “Legbank” project seems to fall into this category: existing prosthetic care solutions, orthopedic devices and engineering models were combined anew to design affordable prostheses for Colombian low-income amputees. Again, Zakia Moulaoui (“Invisible – Edinburgh”) kept people at the center of social innovations, and claimed that the innovative part of it depends on tackling a certain issue in a different or more creative way. In her case, homelessness is addressed by providing skills and opportunities as tour guides to homeless people, in contrast to those who tackle this social issue through policy making or volunteering. Tania Laden, Co-founder of “Livelyhoods”, made another relevant point during her interview, stating that social innovation in Kenya was happening also before her company was founded. Here, the element of newness was brought instead by the entrepreneurial model, defined by the respondent as “a pretty new concept that stays above what done until now”. In this sense, social entrepreneurship seems to imply social innovation, but not the other way around. Later in the conversation, Laden described what Livelyhoods is doing in Kenya, which consists in teaching business-related skills to the youth coming from urban slums, and then employing them to sell products and gain a living out of it. Although this social solution could be seen as innovative, the respondent considers herself and Maria Springer (the other co-founder) “facilitators” rather than actual innovators, mainly because of the way they connected elements, stakeholders, and activities that were already existing in Kenyan slums. Also Floor Nagler (“No Mad Makers”) recalled the concept of “facilitation”, while explaining that refugees were already crafting bags from discarded boats and rest materials before the initiative was launched. According to the respondent, the main innovation brought in Lesvos was indeed to “give a structure to this existing activity, create workshops for people to actually learn how to do it, and facilitate the whole thing in an organized context”. These arguments bring to light a new way of looking at social innovations, expressed here as improved and redefined connections between existing factors and activities.

Lastly, the three remaining interviewees consciously or unconsciously chose not to give a unique definition of social innovation, and focused instead on their personal experiences. For instance, Jaqueline Van Lent (“Mode met een Missie”) considered her project to be extremely innovative at the time the company was founded, especially for the way vulnerable women were integrated in the design and production processes. Similarly, Davide Brolati (“Centro

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Apolloni”) saw the core innovation of his solution in the way music, sport, and cultural courses are tailored to children’s needs. Both of them seemed to use their own cases as a mean to explain the general concept of social innovation. Unlike the two previous respondents, Thorkil Sonne (“Specialisterne”) intentionally avoided any theoretical definition of social innovation, and preferred to describe his proposed solution, claiming that Specialisterne finds value where other people could not see it. According to his words, “although we did not invent anything completely new, (…) in one sense, our solution is very disruptive. But I’m not sure I can come closer than that”. Such attitudes, together with an observed lack of comfort in prescriptively defining the concept of social innovation, may suggest that some of these innovators are “doers” rather than theoretical thinkers, and that their understanding of the topic is restricted and strongly embedded in their personal business cases.

4.2 Social Problem

At different stages of the data collection process, the researcher sought for definitions of social problems and descriptions of those tackled by each respondent. Although during the interviews only three out of eight interviewees provided clear details about what they perceive as “social problems”, one more suggested to check the company website for information on that, and almost all the respondents encountered difficulties in addressing the topic, relevant findings emerged along the way.

Firstly, Brolati (“Centro Apolloni”) explained his point of view on the topic, defining social problems as those that affect different aspects of society. By using his own words, “a social problem tends to stratify within society, layer after layer, and all these layers are interconnected: it’s like a shaper sorter, the layers affect each other, and solutions have to consider all that”. In his case, the social unrest experienced by youth living on his territory is due, among many, to two main factors: a lack of opportunities and a substantial disconnection between young people themselves, often leading to increased levels of stress, isolation, and psychological harms. In a similar way, Di Ciaccio reinforced the idea that a social problem affects a multitude of people, and sometimes even whole communities (i.e. climate change and pollution). While answering to the question asked by the researcher, Di Ciaccio underlined that social problems have a negative, costly impact on society, and that they often remain unsolved since the relationship “problem-solution-sustainment” is difficult to hack. As

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a matter of fact, the respondent added that a unique solution for social problems is extremely complex to be found: for this reason, social entrepreneurship is highly appreciated and encouraged by governments, since it reduces lateral and hidden costs caused by the social problem itself. By way of example, empowering deaf people to autonomously manage distant communications can reduce undesired side effects, such as marginalization and low degrees of security and social integration.

Aaslund and Nagler, founders of “No Mad Makers”, proposed instead a brief overview on the topic directly on their website, defining social problems “so numerous, widespread and overwhelming that it can feel like it is impossible to do something about them”. Because of such spread and scale, the founders suggest “zooming in” on a specific situation or aspect of the broader social problem, and seeking for a positive change even if small – in their case, they are not addressing immigration as a whole, but rather are tackling a specific part of it, namely empowering refugees to better their own situation through active work.

Nevertheless, De Bakker brought a fundamental contribution to the current research, and her arguments confirmed and highlighted the analogies between social problems and wicked ones discussed in the literature review. De Bakker described social problems as “multifaceted”, “lacking of a clear cause”, and “very complex to define”. Besides, the respondent also added that seeking for a unique explanation and definition of social problems may be dangerous, since it may lead scholars to overlook specific peculiarities of each social issue. For instance, Colombian amputees became such for multiple reasons (i.e. land mines, car accidents, diabetes, etc.), making it hard to draw a unique, well-defined category of amputees. Again, the consequences of these events affected the way people live, work, go to school, travel within the country, and integrate with the rest of the community, meaning that situations have to be analyzed case by case.

Although the remaining interviewees did not straightforwardly explain what they consider a social problem to be, they discussed the characteristics of the social issues they are currently tackling, succeeding in providing meaningful insights to the study while doing so. By way of illustration, Sonne (“Specialisterne”) encountered many difficulties during his experience with people suffering of ASD, such as labor markets unable to accept autistic people, as well as autistic communities unwilling to disclose information on their diagnoses because they were afraid of being labeled. By quoting Sonne’s words, “this problem looks like a big tank,

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and contains many aspects that make it difficult to be solved”. Similarly, Laden (“Livelyhoods”) described the problem of youth unemployment in Kenyan urban slums as something “complex”, “with multiple challenges”, and “quickly worsening”, with negative effects on future generations. Again, according to Moulaoui (“Invisible – Edinburgh”), homelessness in Scotland is caused by several factors, including drug and alcohol addictions, health issues, psychological breakdowns, while the lack of empathy and understanding from the public contributes to worsen the problem. Besides underlining once more the multitude of causes that may lead to a certain social problem, Van Lent (“Mode met een Missie”) pays attention to the number of stakeholders typically involved. In the case of vulnerable women, families, local institutions, and social services are just one part of the broad actors related to that issue.

Before moving to the next section, Table 1 offers a summary of the social challenges addressed by the respondents. The theoretical similarities between social and wicked problems emerged during the research will be further analyzed in the “Discussion” chapter.

Company Category Social Problem

Centro Apolloni Minority groups Vulnerable youth Invisible - Edinburgh Minority groups Homeless people No Mad Makers Minority groups Refugees

Livelyhoods Minority groups Unemployed youth Mode met een Missie Minority groups Vulnerable women Pedius Minority groups Deaf people

ProPortion Foundation Minority groups Low-income amputees

Specialisterne Minority groups People with Autism Spectrum Disorders

Table 1. Overview of the social problems addressed by the companies that took part in the research.

4.3 Design Thinking

This section focuses on design thinking, and on how and to what extent interviewees implemented it along their operational and managerial processes. To begin with, it is

Design thinking for social innovation : how does design thinking help social enterprises generate social innovations?