Barriers to Bringing Design Function into Technology Start-Ups: A Survey on the Incubation Programme of Hong Kong Science Park

Abstract

The intersection between Design and Entrepreneurship is an emerging research field. Design is stated as an approach, process or method for Entrepreneurship. This overlaps with the concept of Design Management, especially the entrepreneurial mode of Design Management. However, we argue that the way of bringing Design function into a tech start-up organization was ignored. As a new venture, there is a process of introducing and applying the Design function. This implies a changed relationship between Design function and the tech start-ups, which are in different stages of Design Management maturity. To fill this gap, an online survey of 123 tech start-ups in Hong Kong Science Park was conducted. Three main findings are obtained: 1) heterogeneous Design demands according to the Design Management maturity; 2) a process-based view of bringing Design function into tech start-ups; 3) four main barriers to bringing Design function.