Design Thinking Self-Efficacy: The Impact on Continuous Improvement and Individual Ambidexterity

Abstract Organizations are challenged to improve existing processes and products and simultaneously innovate them to stay competitive. Employees must therefore perform both exploratory and exploitative activities (i.e., individual ambidexterity) that require differentiation and integration mechanisms in addition to alignment and adaptivity. Recent research shows that continuous improvement, as a dynamic capability, provides the right climate and infrastructure, but it remained unclear how those involved escape the existing frames within which improvement takes place, so that innovation emerges. After all, dealing with such ambiguity and duality requires integrative complex thinking. Design thinking offers the opportunity to do so. In this study, we show how design thinking self-efficacy, i.e. one’s confidence in applying design thinking, enhances the relationship between continuous improvement and individual ambidexterity. Based on a literature review and a consensus-based workshop with experts, we developed a design thinking self-efficacy scale and validated it using a survey among operations management staff of a Dutch cargo airline. This study shows that employees proficient in design thinking show more ambidextrous behavior, especially when involved in continuous improvement. Design thinking is a catalyst in the relationship between continuous improvement and ambidexterity. By balancing exploration and exploitation with the help continuous improvement and design thinking, organizations can manage knowledge more effectively to respond swiftly to market changes and achieve long-term success in the knowledge economy. Management should therefore stimulate continuous improvement and facilitate the development of design thinking capabilities that to deal with dualities.