Design Research in Innovation Management: a pragmatic and human-centered approach

This article outlines a pragmatic and human-centered Design Research approach in Innovation Management (IM). This research approach is of particular relevance when investigating IM under conditions of high uncertainty associated with changing environments and the complexity of transforming organizational architectures and business models. Under conditions of high uncertainty and complexity, research approaches that reduce complexity to specific factors are unsuitable. In contrast, Design Research in IM permits investigating IM under these conditions as it enables examining IM interventions and their impact within real-world messiness. Design Research in IM empirically examines if the designed intervention provides a satisfactory and meaningful IM solution. This article provides a guide on how to examine IM interventions and how to generate practical knowledge. This practical knowledge enables practitioners to take action to facilitate innovation, and the approach allows viewing IM as a design practice. The outlined approach provides a new way to investigate and expand the discourse in the IM literature by developing practical knowledge in addition to theories and conceptual models.