Criticizing Design Thinking: A Four-Country Institutional Analysis

178 empirical indicators from 47 secondary sources across India, Kenya, Nigeria, and Bangladesh interrogate the effectiveness of Design Thinking in developing economies. The paper by Shoaib Ahamed Khan uses fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis to identify institutional conditions leading to the methodology's structural inadequacy. Findings highlight alternative innovation pathways like M-Pesa and BRAC that emerged through institutional entrepreneurship rather than facilitated design.

Use Cases

• Analyzing configurational conditions for innovation methodology failure based on institutional void intensity, financial market failure depth, and R&D resource constraint
• Comparing documented counter-DT innovations like M-Pesa and Nigerian fintech based on the empirical indicators assembled
• Testing the disconfirmation of Design Thinking's assumed effectiveness based on the Most-Similar System Design across four countries
• Extending Institutional Voids Theory into the domain of innovation methodology based on the scope conditions framework developed

Strengths

• Assembles 178 empirical indicators from 47 Tier 1 and Tier 2 secondary sources, providing a multi-faceted evidence base
• Applies a structured comparative method (Most-Similar System Design) across four distinct national cases: India, Kenya, Nigeria, and Bangladesh
• Combines Structures Focused Comparison with preliminary fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA) calibrations for configurational analysis

Limitations

• The dataset is a 173.1 KB DOCX file, indicating a limited scope focused on the paper's analysis rather than a large-scale data repository
• Row count and column-level documentation are absent; data structure and variable semantics must be inferred from the text
• Description metadata is limited; actual data quality and granularity require manual inspection after download

Provenance

Source

figshare

Collection Method

Secondary data assembly from 47 Tier 1 and Tier 2 sources, combined with Structures Focused Comparison and fsQCA.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-05-31 13:10:05; freshness should be verified.

Geography

India, Kenya, Nigeria, Bangladesh