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Investor relations is the communication of information relating to the company to the financial community; analysts, investors and potential investors. It is regarded as a relatively new phenomenon, which has developed most rapidly in the USA followed by the UK. Traditionally continental European companies have been viewed as more reliant on loan rather than equity funding. However the development of increasingly important equity markets throughout Europe has led to a growth in importance of the Investor Relations function. This paper examines the importance of the investor relations function within the top 80 continental European companies by reporting on the result of a postal questionnaire. The results confirm that many continental European companies have well established investor relations practices and the function is growing in importance.

The purpose of this paper is to critically review the literature on design thinking training to elucidate guidelines for best practices of design thinking training interventions.

The literature was reviewed, which outlined several themes that informed a series of recommendations for organizations considering developing design thinking training.

Process-based training, delivery activities and content, skills-based approach, delivery format, support for training and training evaluation were identified as key themes in the literature. These themes highlighted practical recommendations for developing design thinking training interventions. Findings also demonstrate current limitations in the literature.

Research on design thinking training is limited; therefore, recommendations for training should be applied carefully. The limited research points to a fruitful area for future research and development of design thinking training.

This paper suggests that researchers and practitioners should develop face-to-face or hybrid design thinking training interventions that follow the design thinking process and focus on the development of relevant skills, using interactive, user-focused and design visualization activities. Results suggest that adequate support for training should be provided, and outcomes of training should be empirically evaluated.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this paper is the first to review the design thinking training literature and provide general recommendations for both design thinking training development and design thinking research.