Role of resource integration in adoption of medical tourism service

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this article is to identify enabling and inhibiting factors that influence patients during their consideration of medical tourism for their healthcare requirement. The research provides marketing and practice implications that help in promoting medical tourism service. Furthermore, the paper provides evidence from medical tourism service to establish the relationship between resource integration and adoption of the service.

Design/methodology/approach

The article takes a two‐pronged exploratory study approach, with study one focusing on analysing prospective medical tourists' emotional impediments in their consideration of the service, while study two analyses the factors that helped medical tourists who have already availed the service, overcome the impediments.

Findings

In this article, it is identified that resource integration, particularly social resources, has a major impact on individual's decision to adopt a service. The exploratory study indicates that perceived knowledge disadvantage, lack of perceived control, and lack of social support in the destination country lead causes emotional discomfort to medical tourists. The study also indicates that the ability to integrate social resources available to them helped prospective medical tourists in their assessment of medical tourism service prior to adopting it. The article establishes that integration of social resources enables the patients to overcome the emotional discomfort and thus pursues to adopt medical tourism service.

Originality/value

While previous medical tourism service research has primarily focused on cognitive factors in patients' decision making such as quality and cost of healthcare services in destination countries, this article throws light on the enabling and inhibiting factors that influence adoption of medical tourism service.

Citation

Rajagopal, S., Guo, L. and Edvardsson, B. (2013), "Role of resource integration in adoption of medical tourism service", International Journal of Quality and Service Sciences, Vol. 5 No. 3, pp. 321-336. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJQSS-07-2012-0005