Empowering Kenyan SMEs: Leveraging Business Intelligence, Design Thinking, and AI for Sustainable Innovation: A Narrative Review

The role of design in fostering innovation and creating a competitive advantage has garnered increasing interest among management scholars over time. Early perspectives on this topic were rooted in product and architectural design—spanning buildings, furniture, and clothing—where scholars argued that "thinking like a designer" could help address complex, "wicked problems". They proposed that organizations could maximize the benefits of this mindset by embedding design thinking into their structures and cultures. Despite these early theoretical insights, much of the initial empirical research on design approaches in organizations concentrated on the team level, outlining specific tools that enable teams to "think like designers." This research identified a structured problem-solving approach incorporating design tools such as rapid prototyping, user observation, idea visualization, and brainstorming. Over time, the application of these "designedly tools" across various organizational challenges led to the emergence of "design thinking" as a distinct discipline. While existing research on design thinking has largely focused on its practical applications in solving business problems. It has paid comparatively less attention to the broader advantages of integrating design as a core element of organizational culture. Design can foster innovation and generate a competitive advantage for organizations and has, over time, attracted increasing interest among management scholars. Building on frameworks of product and architectural design (e.g., the design of buildings, furniture, clothes), early proponents of this mind-set suggested that “thinking like a designer” to solve “wicked problems” could be best leveraged in organizations by “infusing” design into the fabrics and cultures of these organizations. Despite this initial theorizing, most early empirical studies of design approaches in organizations focused on the team level and defined the specific tools that these teams could use to “think like designers.” This research identified a systematic approach to problem-solving that employs design tools such as rapid prototyping, user observation, visualization of ideas, and brainstorming. Over time, the use of such “designedly tools” to solve a wide variety of organizational problems evolved into a new discipline called “design thinking” Research on design thinking, thus, has traditionally emphasized the practical implications of using design tools to solve business problems but has largely overlooked the potential benefits of incorporating design as a key component of organizational culture