Doing Design Thinking: Conceptual Review,Synthesis, and Research Agenda

Design thinking has attracted considerable interest from practitioners and academics alike, as it offers a novel approach to innovation and problem‐solving. However, there appear to be substantial differences between promoters and critics about its essential attributes, applicability, and outcomes. To shed light on current knowledge and conceptualizations of design thinking we undertook a multiphase study. First, a systematic review of the design thinking literature enabled us to identify 10 principal attributes and 8 tools and methods. To validate and refine our findings, we then employed a card sorting exercise with professional designers. Finally, we undertook a cluster analysis to reveal structural patterns within the design thinking literature. Our research makes three principal contributions to design and innovation management theory and practice. First, in rigorously deriving 10 attributes and 8 essential tools and methods that support them from a broad and multidisciplinary assortment of articles, we bring much needed clarity and validity to a construct plagued by polysemy and thus threatened by “construct collapse.” Second, aided by the identification of perspectives of scholars writing about design thinking, we provide detailed recommendations for relevant topics warranting further study in order to advance theoretical understanding of design thinking and test its applications. Third, we identify the enduring, yet essential, questions that remain unresolved across the extant design thinking literature and that may impede its practical implementation. We also provide suggestions for the theoretic frames, which may help address them, and thus advance the ability of scholars and managers alike to benefit from design thinking’s apparent advantages.     

Costs and benefits of internal control audits: evidence from M&A transactions

To inform the debate on the merits of internal control audits, we examine managers’ decisions to temporarily exempt newly acquired businesses from Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. We document that managers are more likely to elect the exemption when expected compliance costs are higher, such as when acquisitions are larger and occur later in the year. We find only modest evidence that managers use the exemption to avoid scrutiny of value-destroying deals. Exemption use, however, is associated with negative post-acquisition outcomes, including lower return-on-assets and higher likelihoods of goodwill impairments and financial statement restatements. These results comport with compliance providing benefits by facilitating timely identification and correction of control problems in the newly acquired business. Finally, we document negative abnormal stock returns at the time exemption use is announced and over the subsequent 3 years, suggesting that investors view exemption use negatively and that their initial price reactions are incomplete.     

For-profit environmental voluntourism in Costa Rica: teen volunteer,host community,and environmental outcomes

With its growth in popularity, voluntourism (volunteer tourism) has seen greater attention from the research community. This case study research investigates the tripartite outcomes of a for-profit environmental voluntourism program in Costa Rica, focusing on teen participants, host community, and the environment. Authors conducted field research and gathered data from online surveys, semi-structured interviews, focus groups, and participant observation with 108 respondents, including teen voluntourists, parents, and community influentials. Findings indicated community stakeholders perceived projects to be meaningful, with visible social and environmental benefits. In the short term, teens showed an increased concern for social and environmental problems, as well as a heightened awareness of environmental issues. Self-reported increases in time spent volunteering after students completed the program was less prevalent; however, 19% of teens stayed committed to volunteerism and civic engagement through completion of more than one voluntourism service tour. We documented longer term positive outcomes in relation to pro-environmental behavior change and attempts at intergenerational learning. Unexpected outcomes were documented in relation to bolstering of longer term academic and life/career paths after completing a service trip. We highlight best-practices for planning projects through individuals with longstanding community connections and an ability to facilitate outcome oriented, meaningful service projects.     

Asymmetric news responses of high‐frequency and non‐high‐frequency traders

Using NASDAQ trade and Reuters news data, I show that the response of aggressive non‐high‐frequency traders (nHFTs) to news is stronger than that of aggressive high‐frequency traders (HFTs). Classifying news into quantitative (“hard”) and less quantitative (“softer”) news, the trading response of aggressive nHFTs to softer news exceeds HFTs’ response. Positive news elicits greater return and nHFT responses than negative news during the 2008 financial crisis period. As this phenomenon persists even after excluding the 2008 short‐sale ban, the results support the hypothesis of nHFTs exhibiting stronger asymmetric responses during crisis periods.     

The value of non-personally identifiable information to consumers of online services: evidence from a discrete choice experiment

We estimate the value of non-personally identifying information to consumers of online services through a discrete choice experiment based on hypothetical streaming video services. Non-personally identifying information for online services is typically information on the ways in and times at which customers use the service, and is distinct from personally identifying information such as email addresses or telephone numbers. For most of our survey respondents, we find no evidence that they were willing to pay to avoid sharing their non-personally identifying information with third parties. A smaller group of respondents never selected a service that shared information with third parties.     

Modelling Category Inflation with Multiple Inflation Processes: Estimation,Specification and Testing1

Zero-inflated ordered probit (ZIOP) and middle-inflated ordered probit (MIOP) models are finding increasing favour in the discrete choice literature. We propose generalizations to these models – which collapse to their ZIOP/MIOP counterparts under a set of simple parameter restrictions – with respect to the inflation process. These generalizations form the basis of a new specification test of the inflation process in ZIOP and MIOP models. Support for our generalization framework is principally demonstrated by revisiting a key ZIOP application from the economics literature, and reinforced by the reassessment of an important MIOP application from political science. Our specification test supports the generalized models over the original ZIOP/MIOP ones, suggesting an important role for it in modelling zero- and middle-inflation processes.     

The role of domestic financial and economic development in financial integration

Using two-step system generalized method-of-moments on an unbalanced panel of 75 countries from 1996 to 2010, this study shows that financial development’s effect on the pace of a country’s financial integration is conditional on economic development. Indeed, the results validate the observation that greater financial development conditioned on similar levels of economic development should precede closer financial integration.     

Mortality Inequality in England over the Past 20 Years*

In this paper, we study the evolution of age‐group‐ and gender‐specific mortality and mortality inequality in England between 2003 and 2016, by comparing small geographic areas ranked by deprivation and grouped into bins of similar population size. We show that across all age groups, but especially in the older age groups (65+), there has been a clear and significant reduction in rates of mortality since 2003. In spite of these improvements, we continue to see significant inequalities in mortality across most age groups in 2016 and evidence of rising inequalities among women in the 65+ and men in the 80+ age groups. Furthermore, we see a striking stalling of the downwards trend in mortality and mortality inequality observed between 2003 and 2010 during the years of economic austerity in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis in England between 2010 and 2016. Analysis of specific causes of death among adults aged 20–79 allows us to examine the drivers and dynamics of these trends in more depth, as well as to consider scope for, and types of, interventions that would be appropriate at different ages.     

Is there evidence of insider trading in Australian water markets?

Insider trading is a much studied form of market manipulation in the financial market literature. However, studies addressing the issue of insider trading in resource markets, and in particular water markets, are rare. This study investigates the occurrence of insider trading practices around important water market allocation announcements in the Goulburn temporary water market trading zone in the Murray–Darling Basin, Australia, which is one of the largest and longest operating water market districts in the world. Nine years of daily water allocation volume and price transactions between 2008 and 2017 are modelled, with some evidence found of abnormal price movements in the 3 or 5 days preceding water allocation announcements, and especially before the introduction of insider trading rules in 2014. However, although the results do suggest some very weak statistically significant evidence that insider trading may still be present in Goulburn water markets post‐2014, it is just as feasible that our results may also reflect an increased sophistication of trader behaviour over time.     

Value co‐creation in online healthcare communities: The impact of patients’ reference frames on cure and care

The gradual transition of health care toward businesses during the past 50 years has converted passive patients into active customers. In our digital society, patients increasingly use online health communities to satisfy complex needs that healthcare professionals leave unmet, including the creation of cure‐oriented (i.e., functional) and care‐oriented (i.e., emotion) value. This research investigates patients’ reference frames (self versus other) as an information processing mechanism and their impact on value creation in online communities. The analysis of 1,687 online postings of a leading healthcare platform shows that self‐referencing is typical for information obtained through an individualistic, patient–doctor encounter; other‐referencing emerges when patients focus on the needs of their peers. Information gathered through the patient–doctor encounter and processed with a self‐referencing frame accordingly enhances cure‐related value, but limits care‐oriented value co‐creation. Other‐referencing does exactly the opposite: it creates a barrier to cure‐related value, but stimulates care‐related value. A patient's experience with the community largely moderates the impact of both self‐ and other‐referencing on cure‐ and care‐related value. These findings show that online health communities can identify and address unmet patient needs, but healthcare professionals still play a critical role in terms of ensuring information quality in online health communities.