Abstract
This article explores the integration of the seemingly disparate notions of care ethics and design thinking. The business community has adapted “design thinking” from engineering and architecture to facilitate innovation and problem solving through participatory processes. “Care ethics” is a relational approach to morality characterized by a concern for context, empathy, and action. Although design thinking is receiving significant attention and application in business practices, care ethics has only achieved limited traction among business ethicists in academia. “Caring design” is offered as a mutually beneficial integration of the two ideas. Care ethics and design thinking have much in common. For example, the relational and responsive dimension of design thinking is analogous in some important ways, namely empathy and inquiry, to the relational and responsive approach of care ethics. The shared themes in care ethics and design thinking make the integration of the two plausible and reciprocal advantages make the combination compelling. Explicit ethical language can shape design thinking as more than a tool of productivity while the participatory processes of design thinking can aid in expanding the circle of care ethics as a social and political ethic. Furthermore, caring design may provide a palatable path for greater acceptance of care ethics among business professionals. An overview of design thinking and care ethics is offered prior to exploring how the synergies are mutually beneficial. The article concludes with a focus on how to educate the next generation of business students for caring design.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Allert, H., Sabine, R., & Richter, C. (Eds.). (n.d.). Design as inquiry: A manual. t[h]inker: Creating knowledge through design and conceptual innovation. http://www.knowledge-through-design.uni-kiel.de/component/k2/item/200-designasinquiryamanual. Accessed February 6, 2016, p. 10.
André, K. (2013). Why should business education care about care? Toward an educare perspective. Research Center ESSEC working paper 1315. https://halshs.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-00880241/document. Accessed June 1, 2016.
André, K., & Pache, A.-C. (2016). From caring entrepreneur to caring enterprise: Addressing the ethical challenges of scaling up social enterprises. Journal of Business Ethics, 133, 659–675.
Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB). (2004). Ethics education in business schools: Report of the ethics education task force. Fl: Tampa.
Baker, D. F., & Baker, S. J. (2012). To “catch the sparkling glow”: A canvas for creativity in the management classroom. Academy of Management Learning and Education, 11, 704–721.
Bennis, W., & O’Toole, J. (2005). How business schools lost their way. Harvard Business Review, 83, 96–105.
Brown, T. (2009). Change by design: How design thinking transforms organizations and inspires innovation. New York: Harper Business.
Buchanan, R. (1992). Wicked problems in design thinking. Design Issues, 8(2), 5–21.
Cant, G., & Kulik, B. W. (2009). More than lip service: The development and implementation plan of an ethics decision-making framework for an integrated undergraduate business curriculum. Journal of Academic Ethics, 7, 231–254.
Chadegania, A. A., & Jaria, A. (2016). Corporate ethical culture: Review of literature and introducing pp model. Procedia Economics and Finance, 36, 51–61.
Christensen, L. J., Peirce, E., Hartman, L. P., Hoffman, W. M., & Carrier, J. (2007). Ethics, CSR, and sustainability in the Financial Times top 50 global business schools: Baseline data and future research directions. Journal of Business Ethics, 73, 347–368.
Code, L. (2015). Care, concern, and advocacy: Is there a place for epistemic responsibility? Feminist Philosophical Quarterly, 1(1), 1–20.
Collins, S. (2015). The core of care ethics. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
d.school Stanford. (2012). ReDesigning theatre. http://dschool.stanford.edu/redesigningtheater/the-design-thinking-process/. Accessed July 16, 2016.
Dalmiya, V. (2002). Why should a knower care? Hypatia, 17(1), 34–52.
Dunne, D., & Martin, R. (2006). Design thinking and how it will change management education: An interview and discussion. Academy of Management Learning and Education, 5(4), 512–523.
Faste, R. A. (2001). The human challenge in engineering design. International Journal of Engineering Education, 17(4 & 5), 327–331.
Fisman, R., & Galinsky, A. (2012). Can you train business school students to be ethical? The way we’re doing it now doesn’t work. We need a new way. Slate. http://www.slate.com/articles/business/the_dismal_science/2012/09/business_school_and_ethics_can_we_train_mbas_to_do_the_right_thing_.html. Accessed January 18, 2017.
Folkmann, M. N. (2013). The aesthetics of imagination in design. Cambridge: MIT Press.
Freeman, R. E., & Liedtka, J. (1991). Corporate social responsibility: A critical approach. Business Horizons, 34(4), 92–98.
Ghoshal, S. (2005). Bad management theories are destroying good management practices. Academy of Management Learning and Education, 4, 75–91.
Glen, R., Suciu, C., & Baughn, C. (2014). The need for design thinking in business schools. Academy of Management Learning and Education, 13(4), 653–667.
Halwani, R. (2003). Care ethics and virtue ethics. Hypatia, 18, 161–192.
Hamington, M. (2004). Embodied care: Jane Addams, Maurice Merleau-Ponty and feminist ethics. Champaign: University of Illinois Press.
Hamington, M. (2010). The will to care: Performance, expectation, and imagination. Hypatia, 25, 675–695.
Hamington, M. (2011). Care ethics, knowledge management, and the learning organization. In M. Hamington & M. Sander-Staudt (Eds.), Applying care ethics to business (pp. 245–258). Berlin: Springer.
Hamington, M., & Sander-Staudt, M. (Eds.). (2011). Applying care ethics to business. Berlin: Springer.
Hawk, T. F. (2011). An ethic of care: A relational ethic for the relational characteristics of organizations. In M. Hamington & M. Sander-Staudt (Eds.), Applying care ethics to business (pp. 3–34). Springer.
Held, V. (2006). The ethics of care: Personal, political, global. New York: Oxford University Press.
Hoffman, M. L. (2000). Empathy and moral development: Implications for caring and justice. New York: Cambridge University Press.
IDEO. (n.d.) Design Thinking for Educators Toolkit (2nd ed.). http://www.designthinkingforeducators.com/toolkit/. Accessed June 1, 2016.
IDEO.org. (2015). The field guide to human-centered design: A step-by-step guide that will get you solving problems like a designer. http://www.designkit.org/resources/1. Accessed June 1, 2016.
Jenkins, J. (2008). Creating the right environment for design. Design Management Review, 19(3), 16–22.
Johnson, M. (1993). The moral imagination: Implications of cognitive science for ethics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Kimbell, L. (2012). Rethinking design thinking: Part II. Design and Culture, 4(2), 129–148.
Koehn, D. (2011). Care ethics and unintended consequences. In M. Hamington & M. Sander-Staudt (Eds.), Applying care ethics to business (pp. 141–156). Springer.
Kolko, J. (2015). Design thinking comes of age. Harvard Business Review, 93, 66–71.
Kreutz, K. A., & Benz, K. D. (2014). Catalyzing tacit knowledge exchange with visual thinking techniques to achieve productive open innovation collaborations. In Open innovation: New product development essentials from the PDMA (Product Development and Management Association). Wiley & Sons.
Lammi, M., & Becker, K. (2013). Engineering design thinking. Journal of Technology Education, 24(2), 55–77.
Lampe, M. (1997). Increasing effectiveness in teaching ethics to undergraduate business students. Teaching Business Ethics, 1(1), 3–19.
Liedkta, J. (1996). Feminist morality and competitive reality: A role for an ethic of care? Business Ethics Quarterly, 6(2), 179–200.
Liedkta, J. (2014). Innovative ways companies are using design thinking. Strategy and Leadership, 42(2), 40–45.
Liedtka, J., & Oglive, T. (2011). Designing for growth: A design thinking toolkit for managers. New York: Columbia Business School Publishing.
Linsley, P. M., & Slack, R. E. (2013). Crisis management and an ethic of care: The case of northern rock bank. Journal of Business Ethics, 113, 285–295.
Martin, R. (2005). Incorporating design thinking into firms. Rotman: The Magazine of the Rotman School of Management (Fall) (pp. 5–7).
McDonagh, D., & Thomas, J. (2010). Rethinking design thinking: Empathy supporting innovation. Australasian Medical Journal, 3(8), 458–464.
McDonald, G. M., & Donleavy, G. D. (1995). Objections to the teaching of business ethics. Journal of Business Ethics, 14(10), 839–853.
Metz, T., & Miller, S. C. (2016). Relational ethics. In H. LaFollette (Ed.), The international encyclopedia of ethics. New York: Wiley.
Miller, S. C. (2012). The ethics of need: Agency, dignity, and obligation. New York: Routledge.
Nicholson, C. Y., & DeMoss, M. (2009). Teaching ethics and social responsibility: An evaluation of undergraduate business education at the discipline level. Journal of Education for Business, 84, 213–218.
Noddings, N. (1984). Caring: A feminine approach to ethics and moral education. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Noddings, N. (2002). Starting at home: Caring and social policy. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Noddings, N. (2010a). Complexity in caring and empathy. Abstracta Special Issue, V, 6–12.
Noddings, N. (2010b). The maternal factor: Two paths to morality. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Oliner, P. M., & Oliner, S. P. (1995). Toward a caring society. Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers.
Paillé, P. J., Mejía-Morelos, H., Marché-Paillé, A., Chen, C. C., & Chen, Y. (2016). Corporate greening, exchange process among co-workers, and ethics of care: An empirical study on the determinants of pro-environmental behaviors at coworkers-level. Journal of Business Ethics, 136, 655–673.
Pettersen, T. (2011). The ethics of care: Normative structures and empirical implications. Health Care Analysis, 19(1), 51–64.
Polanyi, M. (1966). The tacit dimension. Gloucester: Peter Smith.
Puig de la Bellacasa, M. (2012). ‘Nothing comes without its world’: Thinking with care. The Sociological Review, 60(2), 197–216.
Razzouk, R., & Shute, V. (2012). What is design thinking and why is it important? Review of Educational Research, 82(3), 330–348.
Robinson, F. (1999). Globalizing care: Ethics, feminist theory, and international relations. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
Robinson, F. (2011). The ethics of care and global politics. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
Schein, E. H. (1985). Organizational culture and leadership. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Schoenfeldt, L. F., McDonald, D. M., & Youngblood, S. A. (1991). The teaching of business ethics: A survey of AACSB member schools. Journal of Business Ethics, 10, 237–241.
Schweitzer, J., Groeger, L., & Sobel, L. (2016). The design thinking mindset: An assessment of what we know and what we see in practice. Journal of Design, Business, and Society, 2(1), 71–94.
Shaw, D., McMaster, R., & Newholm, T. (2016). Care and commitment in ethical consumption: An exploration of the ‘attitude–behaviour gap’. Journal of Business Ethics, 136, 251–265.
Simola, S. (2012). Exploring ‘‘embodied care’’ in relation to social sustainability. Journal of Business Ethics, 107, 473–484.
Slote, M. (2007). The ethics of care and empathy. New York: Routledge.
Slote, M. (2010). Moral sentimentalism. New York: Oxford University Press.
Starkey, K., & Tempest, S. (2009). The winter of our discontent: The design challenge for business schools. Academy of Management Learning and Education, 8, 576–586.
Taylor, S. S., Ladkin, D., & Statler, M. (2015). Caring orientations: The normative foundations of the craft of management. Journal Business Ethics, 128, 575–584.
The Hasso Plattner Institute of Design. (n.d.). Process guide: An introduction to design thinking. https://dschool.stanford.edu/sandbox/groups/designresources/wiki/36873/attachments/74b3d/ModeGuideBOOTCAMP2010L.pdf?sessionID=68deabe9f22d5b79bde83798d28a09327886ea4b. Accessed May 30, 2016.
Tronto, J. C. (1993). Moral boundaries: A political argument for an ethic of care. London: Routledge.
Tronto, J. C. (2013). Caring democracy: Markets, equality, and justice. New York: New York University Press.
von Krogh, G. (1998). Care in knowledge creation. California Management Review, 40(3), 133–153.
von Krogh, G., Ichijo, K., & Nonaka, I. (2000). Enabling knowledge creation: How to unlock the mystery of tacit knowledge and release the power of imagination. New York: Oxford University Press.
Werhane, P. (2002). Moral imagination and systems thinking. Journal of Business Ethics, 38, 33–42.
Wicks, A. C., Gilbert, D. R., Jr., & Freeman, R. E. (1994). A feminist reinterpretation of the stakeholder concept. Business Ethics Quarterly, 4(4), 475–497.
Wilhelm, W. J. (2010). Ethical reasoning instruction in non-ethics business courses: A non-intrusive approach. The Delta Pi Epsilon Journal, 52(3), 152–167.
Willey, S. L., Mansfield, N. R., & Sherman, M. B. (2012). Integrating ethics across the curriculum: A pilot study to assess students’ ethical reasoning. Journal of Legal Studies Education, 29(2), 263–296.
Acknowledgements
My deep appreciation to Michael Flower and Albrecht Enders as well as to the anonymous reviewers for the Journal of Business Ethics whose insights and suggestions improved this article immensely.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Conflict of interest
Author Maurice Hamington declares that he has no conflict of interest.
Ethical Approval
This article does not contain any studies with human participants or animals performed by the author.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Hamington, M. Integrating Care Ethics and Design Thinking. J Bus Ethics 155, 91–103 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-017-3522-6
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-017-3522-6