Design culture toolkit: a university–industry co-creation approach to impact companies’ corporate culture

The cognitive and thinking paradigms occur during a game-based activity in an industrial context, promoting a relationship between individual thinking and creative exploration in teamwork. In the literature review, we link paradigms that primarily aim at different perspectives and outcomes (e.g. mentality and creativity, creative toolkit, and gameplay); the hypothesis here is that a toolkit can be a stimulating and playful tool that challenges a company’s corporate culture. Furthermore, to test this hypothesis in a university–industry collaboration in Portugal, this study adopts an empirical study through co-creation methods (e.g. design workshops, focus group, design concept prototyping, validation tests) to facilitate a creative process and outcome. The results of this study show that toolkits and gamification developed in a university–industry cocreation approach increase the feasibility of implementing a tool in an industrial context and, in the process, positively impact the corporate culture of an organisation to enhance creativity and the innovation mindset. ; published