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The goal of this article is to provide an overview of healthcare entrepreneurship, both in terms of its current trends and future directions.

The article engages in a systematic review of extant research on healthcare entrepreneurship using the scientific procedures and rationales for systematic literature reviews (SPAR-4-SLR) as the review protocol and bibliometrics or scientometrics analysis as the review method.

Healthcare entrepreneurship research has fared reasonably well in terms of publication productivity and impact, with diverse contributions coming from authors, institutions and countries, as well as a range of monetary and non-monetary support from funders and journals. The (eight) major themes of healthcare entrepreneurship research revolve around innovation and leadership, disruption and technology, entrepreneurship models, education and empowerment, systems and services, orientations and opportunities, choices and freedom and policy and impact.

The article establishes healthcare entrepreneurship as a promising field of academic research and professional practice that leverages the power of entrepreneurship to advance the state of healthcare.

The article offers a seminal state of the art of healthcare entrepreneurship research.

The purpose of this paper is to understand the strategic management of a technology-enabled shift from a product-centric to a service-centric logic and to identify the sociotechnical dynamics underlying this transition. The study focuses on how manufacturers manage to create value in industrial markets through digital servitization.

An abductive research approach is used to investigate two manufacturing firms, and an interpretive framework is used as an analytical template. A cross-case analysis is conducted.

The case companies strategically managed sociotechnical processes of digitization to co-create value. Their service orientation delineates dissimilarity in terms of digital servitization. It reflects a viable ecosystem that moves toward datatization through adaptation in one case and a viable ecosystem that moves toward digitization through reconfiguration in the other case.

A theoretically grounded, empirically informed framework is proposed to detect transformational mechanisms to manage value co-creation in digitally servitized contexts, thus contributing to ecosystem viability.

This is the first study to adopt a system perspective such as the viable system approach combined with service-dominant logic to reconceptualize the overall sociotechnical processes and the underlying mechanisms leading to digitized value creation. In line with a systems view and a systematic process based on a transformative attitude toward digital servitization, the empirically informed framework identifies specific co-creation activities and recursive feedback loops.

Healthcare policies around the globe are aimed at achieving patient-centeredness. The patient is understood as a prosumer of healthcare, wherein healthcare service co-production and value co-creation take center stage. The article endeavors to unpack the state of the literature on the innovations promoting the transition toward patient-centeredness, informing policy and management interventions fostering the reconceptualization of the patient as a prosumer of healthcare services.

A hybrid review methodology consisting of a bibliometric-interpretive review following the Scientific Procedures and Rationales for Systematic Literature Reviews (SPAR-4-SLR) protocol is used. The bibliometric component enabled us to objectively map the extant scientific knowledge into research streams, whereas the interpretive component facilitated the critical analysis of research streams.

Patient-centeredness relies on a bundle of innovations that are enacted through a cycle of patients' activation, empowerment, involvement and engagement, wherein the omission of any steps arrests the transition toward service co-production and value co-creation. Institutional, organizational and cognitive barriers should be overcome to boost the transition of patients from consumers to prosumers in a patient-centered model of healthcare.

The article delivers the state of the art of the scientific literature in the field of innovations aimed at sustaining the transition toward patient-centeredness and provides some food for thoughts to scholars and practitioners who wish to push forward service co-production and value co-creation in healthcare.

Lean Six Sigma in public and private healthcare organisations has received considerable attention over the last decade. Nevertheless, such process improvement methodologies are not generalizable, and their effective implementation relies on contextual variables. The purpose of this study is to explore the readiness of Italian hospitals for Lean Six Sigma and Quality Performance Improvement (LSS&QPI), with a focus on gender differences.

A survey comprising 441 healthcare professionals from public and private hospitals was conducted. Multivariate analysis of variance was used to determine the mean scores on the LSS&QPI dimensions based on hospital type, gender and their interaction.

The results showed that public healthcare professional are more aware of quality performance improvement initiatives than private healthcare professionals. Moreover, gender differences emerged according to the type of hospital, with higher awareness for men than women in public hospitals, whereas for private hospitals the opposite was true.

This study contributes to the Lean Six Sigma literature by focusing on the holistic assessment of LSS&QPI implementation.

This study informs healthcare managers about the revolution within healthcare organisations, especially public ones. Healthcare managers should spend time understanding Lean Six Sigma as a strategic orientation to promote the “lean hospital”, improving processes and fostering patient-centredness.

This is a preliminary study focussing on analysing inter-relationship between perceived importance of soft readiness factors such as gender dynamics as a missing jigsaw in the current literature. In addition, the research advances a holistic assessment of LSS&QPI, which sets it apart from the studies on single initiatives that have been documented to date.

Rooting in the literature on training and laying on Kirkpatrick model, this paper aims to explore key drivers of corporate training to identify how they can be combined into an integrated framework of learning for human capital development.

By adopting the constructivist grounded theory, this contribution analyzes the experience carried out in the last ten years by Virvelle, an Italian corporate training firm.

Results show the rise of five core categories, g1iving rise to an integrated model of Kirkpatrick. Their dynamic interplay led to a new orientation of Kirkpatrick model giving rise to a metalearning ecosystem.

Managerial implications have identified key factors on which building and implementing appropriate corporate training programmes capable of triggering co-generative processes of value creation. Particularly, the essential role of learning quality culture, digital technology and personalization are detected in integrating not only hard but furthermore soft shades of learning. Concerning theoretical implications, the emergence of key structural and systems enabling dimensions for learning, and contextual mechanisms involved in reshaping training effectiveness and achieving integrated learning outcomes are detected. The main limitation of this study lies in the need to generalize results: the conceptualized framework needs to be empirically tested.

The value of this research is built along three main points. The first is the integration among the core categories that an integrated learning system can be built on, promoting learning quality culture through positive feedback loops. The second is represented by the chance to enhance an integrated mutual knowledge development among engaged actors, thereby shaping a more holistic and multidimensional learning model. The third is related to the transversal role that digital technology plays in all phases of the training process as it integrates and enriches them.

This paper aims to enhance the small and medium enterprises’ (SMEs) ability to develop resilience in the face of any turbulences, addressing the question on how these organizations can maintain business continuity when faced with a critical event.

A mediated regression analysis is conducted to investigate the relationships among big data analytics (BDA) capabilities, coinnovation (CI) and organizational resilience (OR) with reference to 192 big data SMEs in Europe.

Research reveals that the BDA capability and CI are positively associated with OR. Moreover, this study discovers the mediating impact of CI on the relationship between BDA capability and OR.

This paper provides important implications for considering CI as a viable strategy especially in a time of crisis and shows how SMEs are more able to recognize business opportunities. The microfoundations of the resilience building capacity of SMEs are also identified. These microfoundations become recommendations for practitioners to enhance SMEs’ responsiveness in light of coronavirus-related crises.

The article applies the citizen science phenomenon – i.e. lay people involvement in research endeavours aimed at pushing forward scientific knowledge – to healthcare. Attention is paid to initiatives intended to tackle the COVID-19 pandemic as an illustrative case to exemplify the contribution of citizen science to system-wide innovation in healthcare.

A mixed methodology consisting of three sequential steps was developed. Firstly, a realist literature review was carried out to contextualize citizen science to healthcare. Then, an account of successfully completed large-scale, online citizen science projects dealing with healthcare and medicine has been conducted in order to obtain preliminary information about distinguishing features of citizen science in healthcare. Thirdly, a broad search of citizen science initiatives targeted to tackling the COVID-19 pandemic has been performed. A comparative case study approach has been undertaken to examine the attributes of such projects and to unravel their peculiarities.

Citizen science enacts the development of a lively healthcare ecosystem, which takes its nourishment from the voluntary contribution of lay people. Citizen scientists play different roles in accomplishing citizen science initiatives, ranging from data collectors to data analysts. Alongside enabling big data management, citizen science contributes to lay people's education and empowerment, soliciting their active involvement in service co-production and value co-creation.

Citizen science is still underexplored in healthcare. Even though further evidence is needed to emphasize the value of lay people's involvement in scientific research applied to healthcare, citizen science is expected to revolutionize the way innovation is pursued and achieved in the healthcare ecosystem. Engaging lay people in a co-creating partnership with expert scientist can help us to address unprecedented health-related challenges and to shape the future of healthcare. Tailored health policy and management interventions are required to empower lay people and to stimulate their active engagement in value co-creation.

Citizen science relies on the wisdom of the crowd to address major issues faced by healthcare organizations. The article comes up with a state of the art investigation of citizen science in healthcare, shedding light on its attributes and envisioning avenues for further development.

Industry 4.0 is dramatically affecting businesses behaviours and strategies, transforming products design, manufacture, operations and services. An outcome of this transformation is digital servitization. This paper aims to contribute to the extant literature about digital servitization in B2B contexts by analysing how I4.0-based servitization affects the quality of supplier–customer relationships.

The authors adopted a qualitative methodology based on an exploratory multiple case study. In particular, the study included 22 Italian B2B manufacturing firms whose I4.0-based digital servitization approaches are described and, then, analysed in relation to the quality of supplier–customer relationships.

The access to customers and data is critical to enable advanced digital services and for improving relationship quality; the levels of relational intimacy and informational openness lead to two subsequent levels of data-driven efficiency and data-driven effectiveness, impacting significantly on relationship quality and enabling relational innovation.

The research explores the link, so far underestimated, between digital servitization and relationship quality in industrial contexts.

The article investigates different types of strategies for managing user-generated content (UGC) and provides some insights into their implications.

A unique sample of Italian hotels with current and prospective customers in the digital environment is investigated. A taxonomy of user-provider interactions mediated by UGC is developed. A mixed approach was designed to meet the study aims. Firstly, an exploratory factor analysis was performed in order to illuminate different strategies of UGC and electronic word-of-mouth (E-WOM) management. Secondly, a cluster analysis was implemented in order to explain hoteliers' behavior toward users' contents.

The study results suggested the existence of three clusters, which reflected three different types of interactions between hotels and customers in the digital domain. Interestingly, most of Italian hotels were found to adopt a reductionist approach to UGC and E-WOM management, turning out to be ineffective to exploit them for the purpose of quality improvement and hospitality service excellence.

Hotels were found to be largely unaware of the importance of UGC and web-based communication with customers to improve their digital business strategy. Tailored management approaches are needed to realize the full potential of hotels' online content responsiveness for the purpose of value co-creation and service co-production.

This is one of the first studies investigating the strategic and management perspectives embraced by hotels to handle their interactions with customers in the digital arena.