Digital social innovation: how healthcare ecosystems face Covid-19 challenges

ABSTRACT

By examining digital social innovation in healthcare ecosystems, this study aims to contribute to the ongoing discussion on ecosystems’ ability to change, adapt, transform, and/or restructure in response to unexpected crises. Drawing on the extant research on social innovation and ecosystems, an interpretative model has been applied to a real-world case study. Our model contributes to shedding new light on how digital platforms boost multi-actor interactions intended to digitally find innovative solutions to emergent and sometimes critical social issues. Our findings demonstrate the ecosystem's ability to reshape itself in the face of emergent crises, such as the COVID-19 epidemic and the resulting socio-economic transformations. This is one of the first attempts to empirically describe the co-creative network of interactions that led to digital social innovation development at the core of the ecosystem's ability to re-shape itself for facing unexpected crises.

KEYWORDS:

• Crisis management
• healthcare
• ecosystem
• digital social innovation ecosystem (SIE)

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Silvia Cosimato

Silvia Cosimato is Assistant Professor of Management at University of Naples Federico II, PhD in Marketing at University of Salerno and visiting scholar at the University Paris Nanterre. Her main research interests delve among others on service management, sustainability, sustainability science, and healthcare management. She has published several papers in international journals, and she actively participate in several international conferences.

Nadia Di Paola

Nadia Di Paola is Assistant Professor of Business Management at the Department of Economics, Management and Institutions, University of Naples Federico II. Her research interests cover the areas of innovation, management, technology venturing, spin-off companies and start-ups. Her research has been published in several national and international journals, books and monographs.

Roberto Vona

Roberto Vona is Full Professor of Management at the Department of Economics, Management and Institutions, University of Naples Federico II. His research interests cover the areas of management, entrepreneurship, technology venturing, operations, and logistics management. He is the author of several publications including journal articles, books and conference papers. He received the Civicrazia Italian award for work diligence and service.