DESIGN AS AN ELEMENT OF INNOVATION: EVALUATING DESIGN EMPHASIS IN TECHNOLOGY-BASED FIRMS

Design is increasingly gaining recognition as a fruitful means to improve business performance. Technology-based firms are an important source of innovation, and therefore it is important to develop a means to study the relationship between technology-based firms' emphasis on design as an element of innovation and their performance. This article develops a model for evaluating technology-based firms' design emphasis. The model is based on a synthesis approach to studying innovation in both services and manufacturing and a three-dimensional definition of design.The application of the model is demonstrated using a set of new technology-based firms. The empirical study confirms the appropriateness of using the synthesis approach for studying design as an element of innovation in technology-based firms. The application of the model provides a classification which can be used as a basis for studying the relationship between design emphasis and performance.