Design thinking para a inovação: um estudo sobre os resultados da abordagem em uma pequena empresa

Abstract

Since the beginning of the 2000s, Design Thinking has been gaining the attention of academics and practitioners in many areas, as it has been proposed as a promising approach to innovation. However, since this is a recent approach, there are few empirical cases about its application, especially in the context of the search for innovation by Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs). Moreover, although it is possible to find in the literature contributions of the approach to innovative results, the concept of innovation is rarely defined in these works. The objective of the present work is to investigate the application of Design Thinking in a small company located in the state of Minas Gerais, Brazil, as well as to investigate the results of the approach in the company, two years after the application. To reach this goal, a literature review was first made with the objective of conceptualizing and understanding the concepts and innovation and Design Thinking, as well as to glean research gaps in relation to the latter. Then, an exploratory study was carried out, whose data collection took place with case study elements. This work carried out an analysis of the company's new product development process, as well as the process used to develop an innovation. Later, the present work analyzes the application of Design Thinking and its results in the company. The research carried out shows four results of the approach in the company studied: understanding the needs and desires of the users, the opportunity for the partners to consider the development of other types of innovation, the use of ideas generated during Design Thinking in new innovations, and, finally, the appropriation of some practices of the approach in innovative activities that took place after the application of the methodology. The present study contributes to a better understanding of the approach, generating empirical evidence of its application, as well as contributing to its understanding in the context of innovation in SMEs.