Responsible innovation as a driver of regional policies and innovation and entrepreneurial practices: The context of digitalisation of healthcare and welfare services

Abstract

This thesis explores the concept of responsible innovation (RI) and its implications for regional policies, innovation, and entrepreneurship policies and practices in the context of healthcare and welfare services. RI is a concept that emerged in the wake of widening grand societal challenges and is developing and spreading quickly to govern research and innovation on society’s needs, values, and expectations. RI emphasises the reflection of purpose, process, and outcomes of innovation and entrepreneurship policies and practices such that they contribute to addressing grand societal challenges and create a broader societal impact. There is a growing belief that RI dimensions of inclusion, anticipation, reflexivity, and responsiveness can offer a valuable tool. Thus, RI practices could enable policymakers, firms, and stakeholders within the regional innovation ecosystem to interact to address grand societal challenges. However, RI has stalled at articulating a governance process with a strongly normative loading without clear, practical guidelines for implementation strategies and mainly concentrated on publicly funded research projects. RI scholars argued that RI and its aspiration could only be achieved if integrated into policies and practices. Furthermore, because firms and the private sector are the primary drivers of innovation, they need to acknowledge the significance of RI practices in innovation and business practices. However, most firms and policymakers are either unaware of RI or find implementing RI in research, innovation, and entrepreneurship policies and practices challenging. Furthermore, RI emphasises the inclusion of micro, meso, and macro levels of stakeholders in the innovation ecosystem for desirable, sustainable, and responsible innovative outcomes and broader impact. However, existing theoretical frameworks do not fully account for whether, how, and why firms adapt and practice RI in innovation and entrepreneurship. Thus, given that firms are embedded in the regional context, there is a need to understand RI and its role in shaping the purpose, process, and outcomes of innovation and entrepreneurial policies and activities to achieve overall regional goals. This thesis addresses these problems in the context of healthcare and welfare services, which are under immense pressure to ensure accessible, equitable, and sustainable services, primarily due to demographic and ecological changes. The emerging digitalisation and innovation in digital technology bring several potentials to address societal challenges, including healthcare and welfare service challenges. However, digital innovation might also raise privacy, safety, and security issues. RI can play a vital role in addressing these issues and drive research and innovation to benefit society. The empirical setting is the context of digital innovation in healthcare and welfare services, particularly in the Western region of Norway. This region established the Norwegian Smart Care Cluster (NSCC) in 2013 to promote digital healthcare and welfare provisions to citizens and contribute to regional and national economic growth. The cluster comprises approximately 290 organizations, including 194 private firms working on digital innovations in healthcare and welfare services. This thesis employs a qualitative approach with two different research designs between Paper I and Papers II, III, and IV. It utilizes empirical data collected from the nine firms belonging to the NSCC and the diverse set of stakeholders, including the cluster administration, university researchers, municipality representatives responsible for procurement and implementation of health and welfare services, healthcare professionals, and regional politicians. Paper I is a systematic literature review based on peer-reviewed journals. Papers II, III, and IV are case studies conducted using semi-structured interviews and secondary data gathered from various sources. The case studies and data gathered in this thesis take an exploratory approach. The approach is split between multiple case studies in Papers II and III and a single case study in Paper IV. The four research papers together answer the overarching research inquiry, ‘How does the RI approach facilitate regional policies and innovation and entrepreneurship practices in firms toward increased societal impact?’ The individual research papers apply different theoretical perspectives together with RI. In so doing, the thesis contributes to theory, practice, and policy in RI, innovation, and entrepreneurship.