From Design to Innovation and Enterprise

Trends on UK business start-ups are upward. Companies House data analysed by the Centre for Entrepreneurs showed that new records were set in 2016 with a total of 657,790 new UK businesses. This equates to 75 an hour!

Many will be new design-based businesses. The Design Council’s 2015 publication ‘The Design Economy’ valued the contribution of the design economy to the UK economy at £71.7 billion in GVA (gross value added) equivalent to 7.2% of UK total GVA. The design economy has been growing at a faster rate (28%) than the UK economy (18%), and already employs 5% of the UK workforce – that is 1.6m people! Headline statistics from the Design Council underline the importance of design and design-led innovation and enterprise.

So how can designers be helped if they are considering setting up an enterprise? Thirty years ago Dr Sally Caird conducted research on enterprise at the University of Durham. Enterprise includes new business start-ups, social enterprise, or innovative projects started up within a company, organisation, institution or charity. Research led to the development of a test of General Enterprising Tendency (GET test). Due to ongoing international interest from educational and training institutions, and development, innovation and training organisations, I co-created the GET2test free educational website with Dr Stephen Hallett, which is available to people who wish to test their enterprising tendency.

The basic premise of the test is that the enterprising person shares entrepreneurial characteristics. The psychological literature has different views on entrepreneurial characteristics and their importance. The approach taken involved identifying key characteristics of entrepreneurial people associated with entrepreneurial behaviour and the entrepreneurial act itself. The key entrepreneurial characteristics identified were: strong motivation, characterised by a high need for achievement and for autonomy; creative tendency; calculated risk-taking; and an internal locus of control (i.e. a belief you have control over own destiny and make your own ‘luck’). Basically people who set up an enterprise are highly motivated (to achieve something themselves) by a good idea and will manage risks, information and uncertainties because they believe they can be successful.

I see the GET2test primarily as an educational tool rather than a predictive measure. It is not a definitive test of entrepreneurial tendency but it is useful in educational settings to prompt thought and discussion about what it means to be enterprising. In this way it can support the development of design through innovation and enterprise.

The GET2test tool has been widely used online with an average of 1,000 users per month, and has been adopted by over 80 institutions and organisations across over 30 countries.

You could if you like take the Get2 test.

 

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