Incorporating Design Thinking in Entrepreneurship Education

One of the approaches that is currently being tested by several universities to improve entrepreneurial education is the use of design thinking as a teaching methodology. Even though emerging literature attests to the effectiveness of design thinking as a teaching methodology, no well-defined, comprehensive conceptual model has been developed to date, identifying components likely to be associated with effective entrepreneurial learning when design thinking is used to develop entrepreneurial projects. Therefore, there is a need to develop a conceptual (theoretical) model in order to guide researchers in evaluating the utility of design thinking in entrepreneurship education as a method of teaching and to guide them in designing course content and delivery. We conducted in-depth interviews of educators and students from four institutions from Europe and the US that are on the cutting edge of integrating design thinking into entrepreneurship courses. The purpose of the interviews was to explore successful entrepreneurial projects where design thinking was used as a teaching or project development methodology and to distill from the interviews, with a carefully-designed coding and analysis procedure, the components which contribute to the success of the project. To analyze the data, we employed both a deductive approach and an inductive thematic analysis approach. The insights of educators and students were used to construct a "conceptual model of design thinking-based entrepreneurship education" that is comprised of nine components. The environmental set of components includes mentoring, tools and spaces, and external recognition. The process components include interdisciplinarity, fieldwork, experimentation, and user-centered research. As the basis for effective learning experience, we propose the meaningfulness of the project and continuity as a measure of effectiveness of the course. It is proposed that, in order to achieve continuity as a measure of effectiveness, all other eight components should be present and sufficient care should be taken in course design and deployment to support their development and use in the learning process. Our research bridges the literature gap between the disciplines of design thinking and entrepreneurial education. This integration promotes greater understanding on how design thinking improves entrepreneurship pedagogy which, in turn, could also lead to improvements in student learning particularly in competencies, such as effective communication, networking, and innovative thinking that are necessary in the twenty-first century.