Making the most out of the innovation of meaning: The importance of inclusion for creativity in inside-out envisioning

Innovation of meaning (IoM) is one of the streams that has attracted attention in design thinking research. Inside-out envisioning aims to assist non-designer employees practice IoM in a similar manner to how visionary executives and designers perform. The process starts with exposing their intrinsic visions to innovate the dominant social or organizational meanings. This makes the employees' creativity that comes from intrinsic goals and values an important driving force of inside-out envisioning. Thus, it is crucial to foster an organizational culture that encourages employees to engage in inside-out envisioning and enhance their creativity. This study explores whether inclusion, as an organizational culture, is an antecedent of creativity in inside-out envisioning. Inclusion refers to a state in which an individual's uniqueness is valued by other group members and externalized to improve group performance. Based on data from a survey conducted with 1104 Japanese employees, this study reveals that inclusion significantly impacts creativity in inside-out envisioning. A multigroup analysis demonstrates differences in the effects of the mediating variables of this relationship based on the successful experience of inside-out envisioning. This study concludes that it is important for design thinking researchers to study inclusion more deeply as a way to implement inside-out envisioning.