This study investigates the impact of a design thinking mindset on employee motivation, team cohesion, and innovative behavior within innovative businesses. Given the rising importance of intangible assets such as knowledge and creativity, particularly highlighted during the COVID-19 pandemic, understanding how to effectively harness team potential has become crucial for organizations. Despite the recognized importance of innovation, a significant gap remains in understanding how to cultivate team cohesion and motivation to drive innovative behavior. This study used a quantitative research method to collect data from 283 employees across various innovative firms in Iran. The study employed Consistent Partial Least Squares (cPLS) analysis to test the proposed hypotheses and explore the relationships between the design thinking mindset, team cohesion, motivation, and innovative behavior. The findings reveal that a design thinking mindset significantly enhances both employee motivation and innovative behavior. The design thinking mindset was also found to mediate the relationships between motivation and innovative behavior, as well as between team cohesion and innovative behavior, indicating its pivotal role in fostering innovation within organizations. Key statistical results include the confirmation of most hypotheses, with t-values greater than 1.96 and p-values less than 0.05, highlighting the significant effects of the design thinking mindset on innovative outcomes. The R2 values for final model indicated that the independent variables could explain 51.2% of the variance in the design thinking mindset and 68.7% of the variance in employees’ innovative behavior. The study concludes that integrating a design thinking mindset into organizational culture is crucial for enhancing motivation, team cohesion, and innovation. By emphasizing components such as abductive thinking, experiential intelligence, and optimism, organizations can foster a culture of innovation, ultimately leading to sustained competitive advantage. These findings provide valuable insights for practitioners and researchers seeking to implement design thinking principles to boost organizational innovation.
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