“Design thinking offers a framework to assess and attempt to solve complicated and poorly defined problems. It helps students better understand how to match need with viability, market opportunity and customer-specific impacts,” Kickul, who also holds the Narayan Research Directorship in Social Entrepreneurship at USC Marshall School of Business BRITTINGHAM SOCIAL ENTERPRISE LAB, said.

Integration of a human-centered approach in management education is becoming increasingly popular and an important tool in real-world application-based learning, the researchers say.

A user-centered empathetic approach speaks not only to design of the product or service in question, but also to identification and tracking of metrics that are appropriately relevant to impact on the end user. The researchers say metrics should address satisfaction of users of the product or service offered by the business in question versus those designing, implementing or financing the products or services. The idea is to help bridge the gap between the product or service and need fulfillment of the beneficiary community.

Traditionally, for social entrepreneurs, the ability to increase their ability to address critical global issues is a core expectation. But scaling impact, the researchers say, isn’t necessarily about growing bigger. In their research, the group identifies different approaches to scaling impact, from increasing the breadth of individuals supported or improving the quality of a product or service provided.

Core questions that should be asked in determining scaling of impact include things like “How were the people and planet improved?” versus “How many new offices did the enterprise open?” the researchers say.

“One key element that makes design thinking so important in social entrepreneurship in particular is it is a creative process that naturally couples with the innovation and disruption that defines social entrepreneurial ventures,” Kickul said.

This also couples with the ability to scale, as often existing molds need to be broken in order for new ventures to succeed with impact. The researchers discuss this “systems change” and the need for entrepreneurs to understand their business model from multiple stakeholder perspectives, as well as understand how these different stakeholders are relationally positioned among each other and the problem and/or solution.

In fact, in her class focusing on feasibility analysis for social ventures, Kickul encourages students to consider different analytical techniques in understanding the viability and longevity of proposed business ideas and concepts.

"By integrating a design thinking and systems thinking perspectives, we can give our students the opportunity to work within their communities to co-create new and innovation solutions that have the potential for meaningful and sustainable societal impact," Kickul said.