Disentangling Organizational Challenges and Change in a Pandemic through Design Thinking

Abstract

The advent of design thinking as a tool for innovation and problem solving has led to its adoption in a range of organizations, especially during this Covid19 pandemic. While proponents of design thinking continue to focus on the principles and practices of their method, little is known on the how its method can be used to disentangle and manage organizational challenges due to the effects of the Covid19 pandemic. This paper provides a unique viewpoint into the process taken by one small and medium enterprise (SME) in Malaysia, in embracing organizational change to sustain and expand its business during a pandemic. It is pertinent to note that single cases can enable the creation of more complicated theories than multiple cases, because single-case researchers can fit their theory exactly to the many details of a particular case. Thus, a single case study may bring an important contribution to theory development if the particulars of the case are seen as opportunities to make further adjustments in an already crystallized understanding of reality.Design thinking, by virtue of being oriented toward solving complex problems was implemented in this SME through its five steps; empathy, define, ideate, prototype and test. Firstly, this paper identifies and defines the challenges faced by this SME, through empathy. Secondly, ideation was carried out through the divergent and convergent process. Soon after, a prototype with is presented. Finally, testing is done with a change management plan. This paper introduces a conceptual framework mapping the design thinking process with Lewin's three stages of change model with design thinking for problem solving in SMEs. Lewin's change model comprises of three stages, known as; unfreezing, changing and refreezing. The conceptual framework will present the consolidation of; (1) design thinking's step on empathy and define with Lewin's change model of unfreezing, (2) design thinking's step on ideate and prototype with Lewin's change model of changing, and (3) design thinking's step on testing with Lewin's change model of refreezing. The novelty of this paper is the detailed theoretical contribution towards Lewin's change model and the practical contribution of the application of design thinking in solving problems, especially during a pandemic. Since this paper is using a single casestudy, it does not lead to a statistical generalization. However, the findings of this single case study can be seen as a preliminary step in the process of building a general theory, containing propositions supposedly applicable to a population of similar cases.