Rights statement: This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in The Design Journal on 16/06/2022, available online: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/14606925.2022.2088096
Accepted author manuscript, 1.03 MB, PDF document
Available under license: CC BY-NC: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Final published version
Licence: CC BY: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
}
TY - JOUR
T1 - Navigating Complexity through Co-design
T2 - Visualising, Understanding and Activating Entrepreneurial Ecosystems
AU - Nthubu, Badziili
AU - Perez Ojeda, David
AU - Richards, Daniel
AU - Cruickshank, Leon
N1 - This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in The Design Journal on 16/06/2022, available online: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/14606925.2022.2088096
PY - 2022/9/30
Y1 - 2022/9/30
N2 - Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) draw on inter-firm resources to innovate. As a result, SMEs find themselves embedded in complex local ecosystems that they do not fully understand. We used the co-design visualisation approach to help actors visualise, understand and activate entrepreneurial actions to address this challenge. The study engaged SMEs, researchers and innovation policymakers as examples of key actors in a local ecosystem. The first co-design workshop was at a Botswana leather incubator with 15 manufacturing SMEs. Then we evaluated our approach with 65 participants from research and policy environments across seven African countries. Lastly, we conducted a workshop with 20 SMEs from Botswana Innovation Hub. Our findings suggest that using ecosystem visualisations as rigorous heuristics empowers actors to identify opportunities for entrepreneurship. Implications for this research emphasise the role of co-design visualisations in navigating complex and less developed entrepreneurial ecosystems to drive regional strategy and innovation.
AB - Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) draw on inter-firm resources to innovate. As a result, SMEs find themselves embedded in complex local ecosystems that they do not fully understand. We used the co-design visualisation approach to help actors visualise, understand and activate entrepreneurial actions to address this challenge. The study engaged SMEs, researchers and innovation policymakers as examples of key actors in a local ecosystem. The first co-design workshop was at a Botswana leather incubator with 15 manufacturing SMEs. Then we evaluated our approach with 65 participants from research and policy environments across seven African countries. Lastly, we conducted a workshop with 20 SMEs from Botswana Innovation Hub. Our findings suggest that using ecosystem visualisations as rigorous heuristics empowers actors to identify opportunities for entrepreneurship. Implications for this research emphasise the role of co-design visualisations in navigating complex and less developed entrepreneurial ecosystems to drive regional strategy and innovation.
KW - entrepreneurial ecosystems
KW - co-design
KW - innovation
KW - visualisations
KW - SMEs
U2 - 10.1080/14606925.2022.2088096
DO - 10.1080/14606925.2022.2088096
M3 - Journal article
VL - 25
SP - 730
EP - 751
JO - The Design Journal
JF - The Design Journal
SN - 1460-6925
IS - 5
ER -