Design-based corporate entrepreneurship: the case of McDonald’s service innovation

In the era of fierce competition and thirst for innovation, the importance of design thinking (DT) as a mechanism for corporate entrepreneurship (CE) is increasing. If applied in large networked organisations, e.g. multinational companies (MNCs), DT can help to adapt to local customers’ needs and develop strategic CE orientation. While there is vast and ambiguous literature exploring the concept of DT and its enactment in practice with various purposes, little attention is paid to the diffusion of the DT in pluralistic institutional contexts with the purpose of fostering CE. Based on an extensive literature review and supported by a single case study of McDonald’s Service Innovation, this paper investigates the phenomenon of the design-based CE in large organisations and describes its developmental pattern on a global scale. The paper presents three main findings. First, it develops a model of the design-based CE by outlining its main characteristics. Second, it proposes the framework that explains the development of the design-based CE on a corporate level. Third, the paper puts focus on the diffusion of the design-based CE in different subsidiaries of a MNC.