Crossing Cultural Borders: A Case Study of Conceptual Design Outcomes of U.S. and Moroccan Student Samples

Abstract

There has been a plethora of design theory and methodology (DTM) research conducted to answer important questions centered around how ideas are developed and translated into successful products. Understanding this is vital because of the role creativity and innovation have in long-term economic success. However, most of these researches focused on U.S. samples, leaving to question if differences exist across cultural borders. Answering this question is key to support a successful global economy. The current work provides a first step at answering this question by examining similarities and differences in generating concepts and screening practices between students in an emerging market, Morocco, and those in a more established market, the U.S., during a design thinking workshop. Our results show that while students in the U.S. sample produced more ideas than the Moroccan sample, there was no difference in the perceived quality of ideas generated (idea goodness). In addition, while U.S. women were found to produce more ideas than U.S. men, there were no gender effects for students in the Moroccan sample. Finally, the results show that ideas with low goodness had a higher probability of passing concept screening if it was evaluated by its owner regardless of the population studied—identifying the potential impact of ownership bias across cultures. As a whole, these results suggest that key aspects of design theory and methodology research may in fact translate across cultures but also identified key areas for further investigation.