DRIVE

Investigating design and strategizing practices in organisations

Faced with an ever-increasing pace and complexity, organizations are in dire need for new types of approaches for enacting development. Design thinking with its empathetic, experimenting ways of working has attracted plenty of popular attention in recent years. On the other hand, innovation and strategy literature increasingly highlight the emergent, distributed nature of development practices.

Investigating design and strategizing practices in organizations (DRIVE, for short) is a three-year multidisciplinary research project studying the interconnection between design and strategizing practices in different organizations. Funded by the Emil Aaltonen Foundation, the project takes advantage of the networks of the researchers and advisory board in Finland and in Silicon Valley to investigate the practices used by design professionals in advancing strategic change, managerial and employee experiences and strategizing practices in design thinking initiatives, and the implications of these types of practices for organizations.