The Creativity Passdown Effect: Sharing Design Thinking Processes with Design Theory

Design theory lies at the heart of information systems design science research. One concern in this area is the potential to limit the designer´s creativity by over-specifying the meta-design or the design process. This paper explains how design research encapsulates a two-person design team consisting of the design theorist and the artifact instance designer. Design theory embodies a creativity pass down effect in which the creative design thinking is partly executed by the design theorist and the completion of this thinking is deferred to the artifact instance designer. In fact, rather than limiting the instance designer´s creativity, the design theorist may create an opportunity for the instance designer to be creative by passing down a design theory. Further, the artifact instance designer operates within the problem domain defined by design theorist, and engages in design thinking to achieve an innovative design by merging theoretical knowledge with experiential knowledge of a design artifact that is being built. The creativity pass down effect was examined through a case that involved developing a tool for multi-outsourcing decision making. The case provides empirical support for the creativity pass down effect.