Abstract
Many businesses such as manufacturers base their business model on selling more products. We begin our research with the question: How can we help organizations imagine their business model to be more sustainable? For this action research, we prepared a workshop for 13 manufacturing organizations and undertook a co-creation design process that resulted in more sustainable business model concepts in the sense of economic, environmental and social benefits. We followed up with five participating manufacturers by using design thinking and ended up with our own concepts of more sustainable business models. We report on four advantages of following a dual design process of co-creation and design thinking when generating a vision for more sustainable organizations. In the end, we strike a balance between the engagement of co-creation that leads to pertinence and the guiding ideals that drive the design thinking process.
Keywords
References
Hart, S.L.: Capitalism at the Crossroads: The Unlimited Business Opportunities in Solving the World’s Most Difficult Problems. Pearson Prentice Hall, Saddle River (2005)
White, M.D.: The Reinvention Imperative. The Magazine, Harvard Business Review (2013)
Christensen, C.M.: The Innovator’s Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail. Harvard Business Press, Boston (1997)
Gilbert, C., Eyring, M., Foster, R.N.: Two routes to resilience. Harv. Bus. Rev. 90(12), 66 (2012)
Cooper, R.G.: Winning at New Products. Basic Books, New York (1988)
Manzini, E., Jegou, F.: Scenarios for sustainable households. Paper at the Greening of Industry Network Conference, Rome, November 1998, pp. 15–18
Osterwalder, A., Pigneur, Y.: Business Model Generation: A Handbook for Visionaries, Game Changers, and Challengers. Wiley, Hoboken (2010)
Zott, C., Amit, R., Massa, L.: The business model: recent developments and future research. J. Manag. 37(4), 1019–1042 (2011)
Teece, D.J.: Business models, business strategy and innovation. Long Range Plann. 43(2–3), 172–194 (2010)
Jetter, M., Satzger, P.D.G., Neus, A.: Technological innovation and its impact on business model, organization and corporate culture—IBM’s transformation into a globally integrated, service-oriented enterprise. Bus. Inf. Syst. Eng. 1(1), 37–45 (2009)
Chesbrough, H.: Business model innovation: opportunities and barriers. Long Range Plann. 43(2–3), 354–363 (2010)
Olivia, R., Quinn, J.: Interface’s evergreen services agreement. Harvard business school case 9-603-112. Harvard University, Cambridge (2003)
Johnson, M.W.: Seizing the White Space: Business Model Innovation for Growth and Renewal. Harvard Business Press, Boston (2010)
Stubbs, W., Cocklin, C.: Conceptualizing a ‘sustainability business model’. Organ. Environ. 21(2), 103–127 (2008)
Verhulst, E., Boks, C.: Sustainable design strategies in practice and their influence on business models. In: Matsumoto, M., et al. (eds.) EcoDesign 2011 International Symposium. Springer, Dordrecht (2012)
Boons, F., Lüdeke-Freund, F.: Business models for sustainable innovation: state-of-the-art and steps towards a research agenda. J. Clean. Prod. 45, 9–19 (2013)
Upward, A.: Towards an Ontology and Canvas for Strongly Sustainable Business Models: A Systemic Design Science Exploration. York University Toronto, Ontario (2013)
Sommer, A.: Managing Green Business Model Transformations. Springer, Berlin (2012)
Casadesus-Masanell, R., Ricart, J.E.: From strategy to business models and onto tactics. Long Range Plann. 43(2–3), 195–215 (2010)
Hockerts, K., Wüstenhagen, R.: Greening Goliaths versus emerging Davids—theorizing about the role of incumbents and new entrants in sustainable entrepreneurship. J. Bus. Ventur. 25(5), 481–492 (2010)
Wicks, A.: Integrating strategic decision making & business ethics: a cognitive approach. Best papers proceedings… annual meeting of the academy of management (1996), p. 352
Lüdeke-Freund, F.: Business Model Concepts in Corporate Sustainability Contexts From Rhetoric to a Generic Template For ‘Business Models For Sustainability’. Centre for sustainability management, Lüneburg (2009)
Joyce, A., Paquin, R., Pigneur, Y.: The triple layered business model canvas: a tool to design more sustainable business models. Presented at the ARTEM Organizational Creativity International Conference, Nancy, France (2015)
Nidumolu, R., Prahalad, C., Rangaswami, M.: Why sustainability is now the key driver of innovation. Harv. Bus. Rev. 87(9), 56–64 (2009)
Simon, H.A.: The Sciences of the Artificial. MIT Press, Cambridge (1969)
Jones, J.C.: The state of the art in design methods. In: Design Methods in Architecture. AA papers, London (1969)
Cross, N., Naughton, J., Walker, D.: Design method and scientific method. Des. Stud. 2(4), 195–201 (1981)
Findeli, A.: Rethinking design education for the 21st century: theoretical, methodological, and ethical discussion. Des. Issues 17(1), 5–17 (2001)
Bødker, S.: A for alternatives. Scand. J. Inf. Syst. 15(1), 87–89 (2003)
Carroll, J.M.: Dimensions of participation in Simon’s design. Des. Issues 22(2), 3–18 (2006)
Sanders, E.B.-N., Stappers, P.J.: Co-creation and the new landscapes of design. Co-design 4(1), 5–18 (2008)
Slater, J.: Professional misinterpretation: what is participatory design. Presented at the proceedings of PDC, vol. 98 (1998)
Muller, M.J.: Participatory design: the third space in HCI. Hum. Comp. Interact. Dev. Process 4235 (2003)
Vicente, K.J.: Cognitive Work Analysis: Toward Safe, Productive, and Healthy Computer-Based Work. CRC Press, London (1999)
Bødker, S., Iversen, O.S.: Staging a professional participatory design practice: moving PD beyond the initial fascination of user involvement. In: Proceedings of the second Nordic conference on human-computer interaction, pp. 11–18. ACM, New York (2002)
Brown, T.: Change by Design: How Design Thinking Transforms Organizations and Inspires Innovation. Harper Collins, New York (2009)
Neumeier, M.: The Designful Company: How to Build a Culture of Nonstop Innovation, 1st edn. New Riders, Berkeley (2008)
Martin, R.L.: The Design of Business: Why Design Thinking Is the Next Competitive Advantage. Harvard Business Press, Boston (2009)
Collopy, F.: Managing as Designing. Stanford University Press, Stanford (2004)
Schön, D.A.: The Reflective Practitioner: How Professionals Think in Action, vol. 5126. Basic books, New York (1983)
Buchanan, R.: Branzi’s dilemma: design in contemporary culture. Des. Issues 14(1), 3–20 (1998)
IDSA.: What is industrial design? IDSA. http://www.idsa.org/what-is-industrial-design (2011)
Brown, T.: Design thinking. Harv. Bus. Rev. 86(6), 84 (2008)
Dewey, J.: Moral Principles in Education. Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston (1909)
Reason, P., Bradbury, H.: Handbook of Action Research: Participative Inquiry and Practice. Sage, London (2001)
O’Brien, R.: An overview of the methodological approach of action research. In: Richardson, R. (ed.) Theory and Practice of Action Research. Joao Pesso, Brazil (2001)
Melrose, M.J.: Maximizing the rigor of action research: why would you want to? How could you? Field Meth. 13(2), 160–180 (2001)
Elden, M., Chisholm, R.F.: Emerging varieties of action research: introduction to the special issue. Hum. Relations 46(2), 121–142 (1993)
Swann, C.: Action research and the practice of design. Des. Issues 18(1), 49–61 (2002)
Lüscher, L.S., Lewis, M.W.: Organizational change and managerial sensemaking: working through paradox. Acad. Manage. J. 51(2), 221–240 (2008)
Guba, E.G.: Criteria for assessing the trustworthiness of naturalistic inquiries. ECTJ 29(2), 75–91 (1981)
Senge, P.M.: The fifth discipline. Meas. Bus. Excell. 1(3), 46–51 (1997)
Kelley, T., Littman, J.: The Art of Innovation: Lessons in Creativity from IDEO, America’s Leading Design Firm, 1st edn. Crown Business, New York (2001)
Johne, A.: Succeeding at product development involves more than avoiding failure. Eur. Manage. J. 14(2), 176–180 (1996)
Papanek, V.: The Green Imperative: Natural Design for the Real World. Thames and Hudson, New York (1995)
Jones, J.C.: Design Methods: Seeds of Human Futures. Wiley, London (1970)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.5 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.5/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.
The images or other third party material in this chapter are included in the chapter's Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the chapter's Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder.
Copyright information
© 2017 Springer International Publishing Switzerland
About this paper
Cite this paper
Joyce, A. (2017). Co-creation and Design Thinking to Envision More Sustainable Business Models: A Foresight Design Approach for Organizational Sustainability of SME Manufacturers. In: Bellemare, J., Carrier, S., Nielsen, K., Piller, F.T. (eds) Managing Complexity. Springer Proceedings in Business and Economics. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-29058-4_14
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-29058-4_14
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-29056-0
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-29058-4
eBook Packages: Business and ManagementBusiness and Management (R0)