Creativity and 21st Century Soft Skills Development Opportunities in Education of Top Management in International Environment

Abstract

Ongoing political, economic, social and technological changes all over the world require higher demands on skills of top managers, they must be more flexible and more adaptable than ever before. Can Design Thinking lead to better solutions to such problems, especially from a managerial perspective? This article presents results from an exploratory case study, where the managers from 7 universities participated in soft skills training using the design thinking methods. The study proved that managers who used a design thinking approach seemed to be more competent to understand creativity, teamwork and interdisciplinarity at finding new solutions. The aim of our contribution is to introduce our knowledge and experience with creativity and other soft skills development opportunities in education of top management in the international environment. The present study is part of a larger research project on the application of design thinking as an approach to finding creative solutions to problems.