Publication

Exploring the links between design investment, innovation and productivity

The case studies and design survey undertaken for the “Design Economy 2018” have suggested the different mechanisms through which design and designers can contribute to firms’ innovation and performance. Here, we use data from the UK Innovation Survey to undertake a causal analysis of the links between design, innovation of different types and productivity. Our analysis draws on data from around 15,000 UK companies which responded to two consecutive waves of the UK Innovation Survey.
The starting point for our analysis is the UK Innovation Survey indicator of whether or not each firm ‘engages in … design activities, including strategic, for the development or implementation of new or improved goods, services and processes’. Are firms which are engaging with design more likely to be innovating? More specifically, we explore whether firms which are engaging with design are more likely to be engaging in product or service innovation, process innovation and organisational innovation. The second stage of our analysis explores the extent to which each of the three types of innovation results in improvements in firms’ productivity.

Published: 12 September 2018