Both academics and practitioners have paid increased attention to design thinking over the past years. Yet, there is still little empirical evidence about its effectiveness for achieving success in innovation projects. Based on the existing design thinking literature, we conceptualize the common themes underlying design thinking to describe the application level of design thinking practices in projects. Then, we elaborate on the performance relevance of design thinking. Besides a direct impact on project performance, we draw on organizational behaviour literature and argue psychological empowerment to be a core mechanism through which design thinking affects project performance. We test our hypotheses with 160 students participating in 62 innovation projects for companies. We find the effect of the application level of design thinking practices on project performance to be fully mediated by psychological empowerment. Our study contributes to the literature by providing empirical support for the performance relevance of design thinking and the underlying mechanism. Furthermore, we shift the perspective on design thinking from being an approach to solve complex or wicked problems to an approach facilitating motivation and empowerment.

中文翻译：

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达到期望：设计思维对项目成功的影响

在过去的几年中，学者和从业者都越来越重视设计思想。然而，关于它在创新项目中取得成功的有效性的经验证据还很少。在现有设计思想文献的基础上，我们将设计思想背后的常见主题概念化，以描述设计思想实践在项目中的应用水平。然后，我们详细介绍设计思想与性能的关系。除了对项目绩效的直接影响之外，我们还参考组织行为文献并认为心理授权是设计思维影响项目绩效的核心机制。我们用160名学生参加了62个公司的创新项目来检验我们的假设。我们发现设计思维实践的应用水平对项目绩效的影响完全由心理授权来调节。我们的研究通过为设计思想与潜在机制的性能相关性提供实证支持，为文献做出了贡献。此外，我们将设计思维的观点从解决复杂或邪恶问题的方法转变为促进动力和赋权的方法。