Overview
Are you a creative-thinker who can help a business or organization be a leader in design and innovation? Are you interested in working with multi-disciplinary teams on tackling creative challenges? The Design and Innovation Management program provides undergraduate students with an understanding of how to creatively lead the management and development of solutions and systems for 21st century design and business challenges.
Our design and innovation management degree focuses on the intersection of design and business, bringing together analytic and creative problem-solving skills through a human-centered design lens. Students study and apply tools and organizing frameworks from multiple disciplines including design thinking, project management, marketing principles, ethics, sustainability and social responsibility.
Management of design and innovation entails working with creative teams and stakeholders to build and transform customer and user experiences within any size company or organization. This collaborative process starts with the identification and understanding of important systems, service and product challenges that affect businesses and organizations. Managers then organize, direct and apply processes that create and develop improvements to these challenges or create completely new products, services and business models.
Graduates work in a variety of sectors including: design consultancies, user-experience and social-innovation analysis, nonprofits, startup companies, educational institutions, government research agencies, entrepreneurship in green industry and social ventures, and graduate studies in design, social sciences, engineering, management.
Design and innovation management is a major and minor offered in Corvallis and online.
What You’ll Learn
Identify, define and describe design management practice in relation to various types of businesses and business models and its effect on social, environmental, political, cultural, and economic systems.
Identify, define and solve human-centered design opportunities.
Formulate and conduct design research.
Apply design thinking and visual thinking processes to understand the framework of problem solving.
Explore and iterate multiple ideas.
Express ideas through visual representations and create prototypes that consider utility, usability and desirability of solutions.
degrees and areas of focus
of classes have fewer than 50 students
companies recruit our students each year
Accounting Opportunities
Study Abroad
Sydney, Australia: University of Technology Sydney
Vienna, Austria: Vienna University of Economics & Business
Santiago, Chile: Universidad de Chile, Facultad Economia y Negocios
Scholarships
Chevron International Experience Scholarship
Deloitte Scholarship
McNeal Family Accounting Scholarship
Pattee Family Accounting Scholarship
See all scholarship opportunities >
Ways to Attend
We offer class in the modalities that work for you and your schedule.
Attend in-person in Corvallis and attend your classes in Austin Hall, one of the crown jewels of the OSU campus.
Study through Ecampus online an make your degree as convient as you need it to be.
Request More Information
Ready to take the next steps? Complete the form to receive detailed information about our programs and how they might work for you.
The creative side of Business
Matt Watson '99, founder, CEO and executive creative director of Watson Creative, started his design career with a move cross-country to New York City after graduation. By 2013, he launched his own creative firm.
He also supports the design and innovation management program in the College of Business with a student scholarship fund and industry thought leadership to the college’s Design and Innovation Management Advisory Council.
“It’s art. But it’s art with a very strategic business objective,” Watson said. “That is what makes the College of Business unique.”
These days, Watson is more involved with setting strategy for clients including Apple, EA Sports, PlayStation, Disney Marvel, LEGO, Pendleton and more than 50 professional sports teams.
Student Stories
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