Business School Forum: Guest Lecture Series (3)

Topic: Service Innovation in Organizations Enablers and Challenges to Design Thinking Practice

Meeting time: 18:50-20:10, November 15, 2022

Tencent conference ID: 252 854 342

Conference Password: 1115

Speaker: Dr. Nikolina Dragicevic

Speaker profile：Dr. Nikolina Dragicevic is a postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Organization and Management at the Faculty of Economics and Business (University of Zagreb, Croatia). Previously, she worked at the Knowledge Management and Innovation Research Centre at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University, where she obtained her Ph.D. degree. Her research interests include service innovation, design thinking, digital work, and knowledge dynamics. She is particularly passionate about promoting a human-centred approach to innovation and (digital) work in business and educational context.

Abstract: There is a lack of empirical insights into the use of design thinking (DT) in East-Asian organizations and scarce indications of how the context of national culture might shape DT practices. This seminar reports on the qualitative, interview-based study that aims to explore the enablers and challenges of effective DT practice in achieving service innovation in Hong Kong organizations. Based on a dozen in-depth interviews, our findings show how the choice to engage in DT practice is shaped by enablers or challenges, pertaining mostly to a misfit with the dominant culture and heavy reliance on digital technologies and finding pressure points to mitigate them. Our study contributes to gaining a further understanding of the contextual nature of DT practice beyond the Western perspective. The seminar will introduce interviews as a research method and highlight the value of it in uncovering the participants' views on service innovation initiatives, particularly the ones relying on digital technologies.

All students and colleagues are welcome to join!