Robotics in Finnish welfare services: dynamics in an emerging innovation ecosystem

Abstract

This paper considers the dynamics of the emerging care robotics innovation ecosystem in the Finnish welfare services. Innovation ecosystems have both evolutionary nature as well as aspects of purposeful design, and we study the relevant actors, their roles, the accelerators and the barriers, by conducting a survey among relevant stakeholders in the innovation ecosystem. An online survey was conducted with a range of Finnish stakeholders (N=250): service actors (n=148) and research and development actors (n=102). The responses of the two groups were analysed with a pairwise t-test. The results show that a variety of stakeholders are needed in ecosystem. The role of micro-level actors, such as workmates and professional and private robot users, were considered as important. Service actors should also play a stronger role in the ecosystem. In particular, research and development actors seemed to be open to new stakeholders entering the ecosystem and highlighted the importance of collaboration between actors. The culture of piloting in Finland is accelerating the ecosystem, but attitudinal factors, such as fears and resistance to change are hindering its development. The ecosystem is dynamic, and the dynamics in the ecosystem seem to be largely based on social and cultural issues.

Building and sustaining innovation ecosystems

“…Second, due to the proposed innovations' systemic and complex nature, experimenters should collectively design and perform experimentation activities at an innovation ecosystem scale to reduce uncertainties. As depicted in Figure 4.1, through the LIE, experimenters aim to probe uncertainties in the economic (i.e., technical functions, customers' demands, and competitors' reactions) and socio-political environments (regulators' attitudes and societal feedback) (Oskam et al, 2020;Pekkarinen et al, 2020;von Pechmann et al, 2015). This differs from regular marketing Beta tests and business experiments that target uncertainties in the economic environment (e.g., Aminoff and Pihlajamaa, 2020;Klompmaker, 1976).…”

“…Defined as a set of perfectly integrated value contributors who bring new innovative offerings to modern society , successful innovation ecosystems are an important source of competitive advantages for industrial firms. In recent years, there has been a tendency for many small industrial firms (especially younger ones) to invest ambitious efforts to start their own ecosystems de Vasconcelos Gomes et al, 2018b;Oskam et al, 2020;Pekkarinen et al, 2019;. As increasing evidence has demonstrated, however, this group of small firms has suffered a high rate of ecosystem mortality (cf.…”

“…Researchers have been increasingly considering the ecosystems' emergence and viability, especially when steered by ambitious new ventures Fuller et al, 2019;Pekkarinen et al, 2019;.…”

“…Whether the proposed innovations could be turned into commercially successful ones is unknown at the outset to all actors engaged in the innovation co-creation process (Pekkarinen et al, 2020). Due to varying perceptions of uncertainties toward whether investment will pay off, focal firms' collaboration capabilities become indispensable to stabilize key partners' commitment.…”

“…They often have to sacrifice technical dimensions to meet changing demands from local regulatory agencies (Oskam et al, 2020). To what extent managers could balance the technical and non-technical dimensions, therefore, determines whether or not the proposed innovations would be successful in mass societies (see Pekkarinen et al, 2020).…”