User involvement and value co-creation in well-being ecosystems

Abstract

PurposeThis article aims to examine how users' involvement in value co-creation influences the development and orchestration of well-being ecosystems to help tackle complex societal challenges. This research contributes to the public management literature and answers recent calls to investigate novel public service governances by discussing users' involvement and value co-creation for novel well-being solutions.Design/methodology/approachThe authors empirically explore this phenomenon through a case study of a complex ecosystem addressing increased well-being, focussing on the formative evaluation stage of a longitudinal evaluation of Sweden's first support centre for people affected by cancer. Following an abductive reasoning and action research approach, the authors critically discuss the potential of user involvement for the development of well-being ecosystems and outline preconditions for the success of such approaches.FindingsThe empirical results indicate that resource reconfiguration of multi-actor collaborations provides a platform for value co-creation, innovative health services and availability of resources. Common themes include the need for multi-actor collaborations to reconfigure heterogeneous resources; actors' adaptive change capabilities; the role of governance mechanisms to align the diverse well-being ecosystem components, and the engagement of essential actors.Research limitations/implicationsAlthough using a longitudinal case study approach has revealed stimulating insights, additional data collection, multiple cases and quantitative studies are prompted. Also, the authors focus on one country but the characteristics of users' involvement for value co-creation in innovative well-being ecosystems might vary between countries.Practical implicationsThe findings of this study demonstrate the value of cancer-affected individuals, with “lived experiences”, acting as sources for social innovation, and drivers of well-being ecosystem development. The findings also suggest that participating actors in the ecosystem should utilise wider knowledge and experience to tackle complex societal challenges associated with well-being.Social implicationsPolicymakers should encourage the formation of well-being ecosystems with diverse actors and resources that can help patients navigate health challenges. The findings especially show the potential of starting from the user's needs and life situation when the ambition is to integrate and innovate in fragmented systems.Originality/valueThe proposed model proposes that having a user-led focus on innovating new solutions can play an important role in the development of well-being ecosystems.

The ties that bind: innovation configurations in low- and middle-income healthcare delivery settings

“…Studies that do not explicitly seek to combine innovations also suggest that healthcare settings benefit from incorporating social and business model innovations with their rom not new product and service innovations (e.g. digital health applications or new clinical device technologies) (Poblete et al. , 2023; Šlapáková Losová and Dvouletý, 2024; Furnival et al.…”

“…, 2017). However, healthcare settings also require social innovations (Poblete et al. , 2023) and business model innovations (Šlapáková Losová and Dvouletý, 2024; Furnival et al.…”

“…In healthcare, social innovations can include co-creation of support and welfare activities with community members with lived experiences (e.g. cancer survivors as described by Poblete et al. , 2023), free care models for marginalized populations (while still charging a fee for others) as well as solutions that address social determinants of health or SDOH (Mason et al.…”

“…Examples include charging fees for services (Hearld et al. , 2018), implementing subscription and consultation fees (Šlapáková Losová and Dvouletý, 2024), creating multiple revenue streams (Poblete et al. , 2023), and can involve incorporating interorganizational partnerships to secure funding (Šlapáková Losová and Dvouletý, 2024; Wankah et al.…”

Exploring virtual facilitation of co-development

“…Facilitation plays a crucial role in building and sustaining learning and development in virtual environments (Juvonen and Toiviainen, 2024). The developmental efforts with partner organizations or customers can offer potential source of competitive advantage especially when operational environment is in constant transformation (Ivaldi et al, 2022;Poblete et al, 2023). For the organizations involved, they enable broader resources for revealing and interpreting complexity, and for responding to shared problems (Edwards, 2017;Ivaldi et al, 2022;Roth and Vakkuri, 2023).…”