From Workshops to Workflows: Boundary Infrastructure and the Transfer of Design Thinking into Everyday Work

Abstract

Organizations increasingly use design thinking to improve innovation and operational problem-solving, but limited evidence explains how workshop learning becomes sustained workplace practice, making transfer a critical challenge for management and operations. This study examines design thinking transfer as an operational embedding process in which training outputs become boundary infrastructure. Using a two-wave explanatory-sequential mixed-methods design, the study analyzes 315 matched survey responses, a primary-opportunity-confirmed sample of 264 professionals, an AI subgroup of 213 cases, and 16 explanatory interviews conducted in Greece and Cyprus. Results show that training design quality predicts boundary infrastructure, and that boundary infrastructure predicts design thinking transfer and mediates the training-to-transfer relationship. Cadence alignment, transfer climate, and digital guardrails emerge as direct enabling conditions rather than moderators. The study suggests that early workplace embedding is stronger when artifacts are maintained, owned, reused, and linked to operational decisions.