This thesis discusses the differences and similarities between the South Korean and the Swedish view on design in relation to innovation. It sets off introducing theories and recent studies upon the subject matter and also the closely related business discipline called "design management". The subject is then studied through analyzing and comparing of governmental actions within the field. Also the result from a brief questionnaire study has been used as basic material to find out how Swedish and Korean people look upon the subject matter. The questionnaire was carried out for this thesis exclusively and the results include answers on design-innovation-related questions from 35 Swedish and 35 Korean people. The result of the study shows that even though South Korea has a policy for innovation-related design and a governmental organ working exclusively with these questions, which Sweden has not, the countries share a lot of similarities in their approaches towards the subject.