Legitimizing Digital Technologies in Open Innovation Ecosystems: Overcoming Adoption Barriers in Healthcare

What is it about?

This article bridges the gap between open innovation and ecosystem concepts, highlighting how technology providers use two key practices—solution selling and issue selling—to legitimize digital technologies among external stakeholders, fostering open innovation ecosystems in highly regulated industries. Solution selling demonstrates practical value of the technology, while issue selling builds trust and acceptance among both customers and field-level stakeholders. Importantly, we show that such legitimation leads to the emergence of open innovation ecosystems, enhancing relationships between technology providers, customers, and field-level stakeholders, making the technology more valuable for end-users. We extend the traditional open innovation framework to incorporate outside-out innovation dynamics, where stakeholders external to the focal innovator co-create supportive synergies, crucial for scaling innovation adoption in highly regulated industries.

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Why is it important?

For managers of technology providers, our article offers actionable insights on navigating highly regulated environments to overcome adoption barriers and integrate innovative digital solutions in healthcare. First, combining solution selling and issue selling is essential; merely selling functional benefits of the digital technology is insufficient. Managers must gain wider acceptance, ensuring the technology is trusted and perceived as beneficial among both customers and other stakeholders. Second, engaging field-level stakeholders in the legitimation process is crucial. Actively involving governments, regulators, insurers, and professional associations helps rally support and align regulatory frameworks with innovative digital solutions, essential for acceptance and widespread adoption.