CKGSB Knowledge

China-focused leadership and business analysis

  • Know China
    • Chinese Economy
      • Airline Industry
      • Agriculture
      • Automobile Industry
      • Business Conditions Index
      • Logistics
      • Manufacturing
      • Movie Industry
      • Real Estate
      • Retail
      • Tourism
    • Society
      • Consumers
      • Culture
      • Demographics
      • Sports
    • Economics
    • Employment
    • Environment
    • Policy and Law
    • Resources
  • Finance
    • Internet Finance
    • Banking
    • Stock Markets
    • Private Equity
  • Digital Economy
    • eCommerce
    • Technology
    • Digital Marketing
    • O2O
  • Connections
    • Economy
    • Emerging Economies
    • International Trade
    • Globalization
  • Winning in China
    • Multinationals in China
    • Joint Ventures
    • Mergers and Acquisitions
  • Best Practice
    • Marketing
    • Management
    • Creativity
    • Branding
    • Social Good
      • CSR
      • Social Entrepreneurship
      • Sustainability
    • Entrepreneurship
    • Innovation
    • Strategy
    • Intellectual Property
    • Supply Chain
    • Talent
  • ExpertSpeak
    • Conversations
    • C-Suite
    • The Thinker Interview
    • The Chinapreneurs
    • Invisible Hand Revealed
    • Opinion

Business and Design: Creative Clusters

June 6, 2016 By Bennett Voyles

Economists and business strategists have long noticed that industries tend to converge on just a few places. Milan for fashion, London for finance, Silicon Valley for technology—for any given sector, there are usually one or two points on which the whole world revolves. Over the past few decades, this insight has led many policymakers to try to nurture not just individual companies but a whole ecosystem—a cluster—around a single industry. When does a cluster strategy work to spur innovation and when does it backfire? Should creative clusters be engineered by governments or should they be allowed to evolve and flourish on their own?

Filed Under: All Articles, Creativity, Innovation Tagged With: Business and Design Series, Design, Design Thinking

Design and Business: A Conversation With IDEO China’s Charles Hayes

May 23, 2016 By Bennett Voyles

For nearly 25 years now, IDEO has stood at the cutting edge of the possibilities of design. Founded in Silicon Valley in 1991 by David Kelley, an early popularizer of the design thinking methodology, IDEO has grown into a diverse global organization, with experts on tap in disciplines ranging from behavioral service to software engineering. Thirteen years ago, IDEO opened an office in Shanghai. Charles Hayes, a partner at IDEO and Managing Director of IDEO China, talks about the evolution of IDEO China, IDEO’s approach to design thinking in a Chinese context and evolving Chinese business and consumer cultures.

Filed Under: All Articles, Best Practice, Conversations, Know China, Q&A Tagged With: Business and Design Series, Chinese Consumers, Consumer Behavior, Design Thinking, Q&A

Design and Business: The Future of Design Thinking

May 17, 2016 By Bennett Voyles

A number of businesses have made remarkable gains by integrating design thinking into their development process—not the least of which was Hovey-Kelley, which morphed in the early ’90s into IDEO, the international design giant. Some universities are even beginning to include a mandatory course in design thinking in the general curriculum. Some corporate strategy experts argue that design thinking is nearing the kind of inflection point that the Quality movement reached in the late 1980s, when the total quality methodology became an inescapable part of doing business. Yet some critics are saying design thinking is dead. But the truth is its value lies in the worldview it propagates.

Filed Under: All Articles, Best Practice, Creativity, Innovation Tagged With: Apple, Business and Design Series, Design Thinking, IDEO

Jeanne Liedtka On How to Think Like a Designer

May 10, 2016 By Bennett Voyles

Once upon a time, designers were considered a fairly rarified breed in the corporate world—people with more interesting hair, eyeglasses and talent than the rest of us, but not a key part of the “real” business. Today, however, that’s changing. As more and more companies face the need for constant innovation, design is earning more respect. In fact, these days, many organizations are training their employees to think like designers. Jeanne Liedtka, a professor of strategy and author of three books on design thinking, argues that learning to approach problems the way designers do can be a useful way to spark innovation in almost every company.

Filed Under: All Articles, Best Practice, Conversations, Management, Q&A Tagged With: Business and Design Series, Design, Design Thinking, Innovation

Design and Business: The Substance of Style

May 3, 2016 By Bennett Voyles

Once upon a time, design was a coat of paint on the locomotive of the real economy. Today, value depends less on oil, steel and sweat, and more on how a product looks, runs and, most importantly, makes the consumer feel. In this series, we look first at the factors that have made design a prime economic force; next, at how executives have learned to create value by training the entire company to think like designers; then at ways in which cities are seeking competitive advantage with design; and finally, at how design itself is changing—and what those changes will mean to the way we work and live.

Filed Under: All Articles, Best Practice, Innovation Tagged With: Business and Design Series, Design Thinking, Innovation, Management

The Importance of Creativity in Business

August 13, 2014 By Neelima Mahajan

NYU-Stern professor Kim Corfman on the importance of creativity in business and the role of culture in spurring or constraining creativity. Creativity is important for organizations. Period. It’s a simple correlation: higher creativity leads to greater innovation within the organization and thus, greater success over the long run. Having said that, creativity is also becoming […]

Filed Under: All Articles, Best Practice, Conversations, Creativity, Innovation, Management, Marketing, Q&A, Videos Tagged With: Creativity, Design Thinking, Environment, Innovation, Leadership, Management, R&D, Risk, Silicon Valley, Slider, Video Interview

Design Thinking Demystified: an Interview with Clark Kellogg

September 26, 2013 By Neelima Mahajan

For the last few years, companies across the world have been obsessing over ‘design thinking’ to solve complex problems. Design thinking, as the name suggests, derives its basic principles from the discipline of design. Unlike most previous problem-solving approaches, it is human-centric, collaborative and driven by experimentation. Many companies, such as consumer products giant Procter […]

Filed Under: All Articles, Best Practice, Conversations, Creativity, Innovation, Management, Q&A, Videos Tagged With: 3M, Apple, Design Thinking, Innovation, P&G, Slider

About

Information, analysis, and interviews about the Chinese economy and doing business in China, from the people who know it best. Presented by the Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business, China's leading business school.


The Knowledge Newsletter

Keep up with CKGSB Knowledge: Subscribe to our weekly newsletter.

Read the Knowledge Magazine

RSS CKGSB News & Events

  • CKGSB 2020 Q4 Investor Sentiment Survey Reveals Optimistic Outlook Amid China’s COVID-19 Recovery
  • CKGSB Founding Dean Xiang Bing Shares Insights on Surviving in the Chinese Market amid the Current Global Environment
  • Looking Back at 2020: An Extraordinary Year for CKGSB
  • CKGSB Partners on Penn Wharton China Summit and Launches New MBA Scholarship
  • CKGSB Professor Fan Xinyu Joins 400 Visionaries to Discuss Asia’s Future at Globally Renowned Horasis Asia Meeting

About Us

  • CKGSB Knowledge Reader Survey
  • Contact
  • Copyright Statement
  • Know What’s Next for Business in China and Beyond
  • Publications
  • The CKGSB Knowledge team

Follow us

RSSTwitterFacebookLinkedinYoutube

Search

Magazine

Newsletter

Keep up with CKGSB Knowledge: Subscribe to our weekly newsletter.

Most Popular Articles

  • The Thinker Interview with Philip Kotler, the Father of Marketing
  • Climate Change and Fake News
  • Do Smartphones Make Us Smarter?
  • Adidas in China: Chasing First
  • When the Taps Run Dry: How Water Shortages Threaten Northern China

RSS CKGSB News & Events

  • CKGSB 2020 Q4 Investor Sentiment Survey Reveals Optimistic Outlook Amid China’s COVID-19 Recovery
  • CKGSB Founding Dean Xiang Bing Shares Insights on Surviving in the Chinese Market amid the Current Global Environment
  • Looking Back at 2020: An Extraordinary Year for CKGSB
  • CKGSB Partners on Penn Wharton China Summit and Launches New MBA Scholarship

Copyright © Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business. All Rights Reserved. ICP1057951