Department of Business
IMPORTANCE OF STAKEHOLDERS IN BUSINESS MODEL INNOVATION
Master’s thesis, Innovation Management Marja Kauppinen December 12, 2018
ABSTRACT
UNIVERSITY OF EASTERN FINLAND
Faculty of Social Sciences and Business Studies Business School Master´s Program in Innovation Management
KAUPPINEN, MARJA: Importance of stakeholders in business model innovation Master's thesis, 50 pages
Supervisor: Professor Hanna Lehtimäki December 2018
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Key words: business model innovation, stakeholder, high-performance organization, commercialization of innovation, innovation management
Purpose of the study was to explore importance of stakeholders in business model innovation of technology-based innovation. In the study was analyzed level of stakeholder definition and utilization of it in business model innovation during immature commercialization process. The object of the study was a biobank, which has involvement to fund itself by business-like operations. The change from non-profit public health sector organization becoming to global business operator demand new culture of management.
The theory frame of the study concerns commercialization of innovation, business model innovation and motives for formation and transformation of strategic alliances. The theory was discussed from the point of business and innovation management.
The research data collection consists of seven transcripted interviews. Interviewees were employees of the object biobank with diverse job descriptions. Interviews concerned discussion of activities, resources, stakeholders and business opportunities of the object biobank. Analysis was interpretative and research method was qualitative content analysis.
The key finding of the study was that the object biobank was dependent of resource availability through networks. Fast development of the object biobank benefits from strategic alliance development and utilization of existing networks in business model innovation. Resource accessibility through owner-organizations (hospitals, health care districts and universities) increases remarkable the competitive advantage of the object biobank. Although the object biobank has lack of resources in business model innovation, has the employees adapted some essential themes of business model innovation.
The study is beneficial for practice business model innovation on multiple industry. Emphasizing importance of stakeholders in business model innovation supports strategic management and performance of an organization. Contribution for the innovation management research is the discussion of stakeholder analysis with gap of tools and theories and importance of stakeholder management research.
TIIVISTELMÄ
ITÄ-SUOMEN YLIOPISTO
Yhteiskuntatieteiden ja kauppatieteiden tiedekunta Kauppatieteiden laitos
Innovaatiojohtaminen
KAUPPINEN, MARJA: Importance of stakeholders in business model innovation Pro gradu -tutkielma, 50 sivua
Tutkielman ohjaaja: Professori Hanna Lehtimäki Joulukuu 2018
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Avainsanat: liiketoimintamalli, sidosryhmä, menestyvä organisaatio, innovaatioiden kaupallistaminen, innovaatiojohtaminen
Tutkielman tavoitteena oli selvittää sidosryhmien merkitystä teknologia perusteiseen innovaatioon perustuvan liiketoiminnan kehittämisessä. Tutkimuksessa analysoitiin sidosryhmien määrittelyn tasoa ja yhteyttä liiketoimintamalliin keskeneräisen kaupallistamisprosessin aikana. Tämän tutkimuksen kohde on biopankki, jonka velvoite on tuottaa osa rahoituksestaan liiketoiminnalla.
Perinteisen julkisen sektorin organisaation muutos, ei-voittoa tavoittelevasta ja kansalaisten terveyttä edistävästä ensisijaisesta tarkoituksesta, kansainväliseksi voittoa tavoittelevaksi toimijaksi vaatii uudenlaista toimintaa.
Keskeisimmät teoriat käsittelivät innovaatioiden kaupallistamista, liiketoimintamallien innovointia ja strategisten liittoutumien syntyperusteita, muotoutumista ja muuntautumista. Teoriaa käsiteltiin liiketoiminnan ja innovaatiojohtamisen näkökulmasta.
Tutkimusaineisto sisälsi seitsemän litteroitua haastattelua. Haastateltavat olivat biopankin työntekijöitä, heistä jokaisella oli erilainen toimenkuva. Haastattelut sisälsivät keskustelua biopankin toiminnoista, resursseista, sidosryhmistä ja liiketoiminnan mahdollisuuksista. Analyysi oli luonteeltaan tulkitseva ja tutkimus metodi oli laadullinen sisältö analyysi.
Tutkimuksessa todettiin biopankin toimintojen olevan riippuvaisia verkostojen kautta saatavista resursseista. Biopankin nopea kehittyminen hyötyy strategisten liittoutumien kehittämisestä ja olemassa olevien verkostojen hyödyntämisestä liiketoiminnan suunnittelussa.
Omistajaorganisaatioiden, sairaaloiden, sairaanhoitopiirien ja yliopistojen, tarjoamat mahdollisuudet hyödyntää verkoston resursseja lisäävät kilpailukykyä merkittävästi. Sidosryhmien moninaiset roolit vaativat erilaisten päällekkäisten liiketoimintamallien kehittämistä tukeakseen biopankin kilpailukykyä. Vaikka biopankilla ei ole kaikkia tarvittavia resursseja liiketoiminnan kehittämiseen, olivat biopankin työntekijät kuitenkin onnistuneet omaksumaan liiketoiminnan innovoinnin keskeisiä teemoja.
Tutkimus on hyödyllinen käytännön liiketoimintamallien rakentamisessa kaikilla aloilla.
Sidosryhmien merkityksen nostaminen keskeiseksi liiketoiminnan muotoilussa tukee strategista johtamista ja organisaation menestystä. Tieteellisesti tämä tutkielma nostaa sidosryhmien analysoinnin keskusteluun uusien työkalujen ja teorioiden kehittämisessä, sekä strategisen sidosryhmäjohtamisen merkityksen organisaation suorituskykyyn.
CONTENTS
1 INTRODUCTION ... 5
1.1 Importance of stakeholders in business model innovation ... 5
1.2 The purpose of the study ... 6
2 THEORETICAL BACKGROUND ... 8
2.1 Commercialization of Innovation ... 8
2.2 Business model literature on commercialization of innovation ... 10
2.3 Stakeholder literature on commercialization of innovation ... 13
2.4 Synthesis ... 15
3 METHODOLOGY... 18
3.1 Methodological approach ... 18
3.2 Data collection ... 18
3.3 Analysis of the data ... 19
4 RESULTS OF THE STAKEHOLDER AND BUSINESS MODEL ANALYSIS ... 22
4.1 Empirical context of the study ... 22
4.2 Results of Stakeholder analysis ... 25
4.3. Results of business model analysis ... 32
4.4 Summary of the research results ... 39
5 CONCLUSION AND DISCUSSION ... 44
5.1 Summary of the study ... 44
5.2 Key contributions ... 45
5.3 Evaluation of the study and further research suggestions ... 46
REFERENCES... 48
1 INTRODUCTION
1.1 Importance of stakeholders in business model innovation
The topic of my thesis is commercialization of bioinformation. Global trend of utilizing bioinformation as merchandize, in addition to improving health, gives opportunities for science in multiple disciplinary field of researches. Utilizing bioinformation has strong practical implementation in a field of public sector, health industry and non-profit organizations cultures and is challenged to transform business-like. My approach is to research maturity level of business model of the commercialization of the bioinformation of a Finnish biobank in a sight of innovation management.
I have narrowed my explorative research into importance of stakeholders in business model innovation process. My thesis contributes a tool for definition of roles and evaluation of importance of stakeholders in business model for strategic management.
Commercialization is an umbrella definition for making profit of a product or service. Innovation in my thesis is technology and service based bioinformation. Bioinformation consists on genome data and personalized data. Samples are collected in hospitals, mainly same time with any laboratory samples. Samples are, depending of biobank expertise, blood, cancer or healthy tissues or urine.
Samples are registered with personal data but coded before delivering to researches. Highest level to collect data of medicine treatments is that samples are collected and analyzed in different stages of illness. There already has been significant results in breast cancer treatments in Turku area.
Competitive advantage in Finnish bioinformation is the high quality of sample treatments and data collection, in addition to infrastructure and development of it.
Business model innovation (BMI) has been trend of business development and commercialization during past decade (Afuah 2014). It has roots in business model design and open innovation with plenty of mixes and variable interpretation in use of it. BMI responds to need of develop sustainable and profitable organizations. Utilization of BMI helps to predict and exploit strategically opportunities and threats to support high-performance organizational success (Afuah 2014). Focus in business model can vary in diverse concerns, for example, in relations between stakeholders, in economy or resources. Parallel business models in use might increase performance of the organization (Wrigley & Straker 2016.) BMI is flexible tool for management and marketing but has been evaluated
to be easy to avoid difficulties in business plan and thread management. BMI is capable in parallel use of other development tools and theories (Abraham 2013).
Stakeholders belong to network of an organization and are studied during decades. Stakeholder research has gap in model of stakeholder analysis for business model innovation and evaluation of importance in high-performance organization. Previous researches consist of topics in addition to stakeholder relationship management (Rothaermel and Deeds 2006; Vyas, Shelburn & Rogers 1995), can in research field be defined alliance management (Luo, Rindfleisch & Tse 2007; Puusa et al 2016), strategic alliances (Todeva and Knoke 2005; Luo et al. 2007), strategic management (Afuah 2014; Carayannis, Sindakis & Walter 2015; Abraham 2013) among some other definitions.
Researches show out that development in management and education and utilizing past researches and increase management capability (Rothaermel & Deeds 2006; Weerawardena & Mavondo 2011), which is in a centrum of management research in formulation and termination and reforming alliances (Luo et al. 2007; Schreiner, Prashant, & Corsten 2009; Sujan & Marcel. 2016). Behind all this is organizational performance measured by in mission fulfillment (Afuah 2014; Weerawardena &
Mavondo 2011). And gaining understanding how organizations are managed, how they use or create resources through alliances and maintain stakeholder relationships through actives increases management capability (Rothaermel and Deeds 2006; Weerawardena & Mavondo 2011). By utilizing stakeholder led approach (Wrigley & Straker 2016) in business model innovation research, benefits the multidiscipline field of research in deepened definition of the research gap of commercialization of innovation (Carayannis et al. 2015).
1.2 The purpose of the study
The aim of the study is to get interpretation of commercialization process of bioinformation in a biobank. Wide concept of commercialization is narrowed in commercialization of bioinformation and is studied from the point of BMI and focusing on stakeholders. Developing the understanding of alliance capability and elements of the management capability in organizations is attractive research topic for strategy researchers (Schreiner et al. 2009). Biobanks are seeking profitable economical balance while they are developing bioinformation analytics and sample collection. The primary task of biobanks is to transfer biobank information for citizens of Finland to increase health (Lehtimäki, Helen, Snell, Eriksson & Montonen 2017). In my thesis I aim to increase understanding of biobank- stakeholder relationship activities and discuss about my findings through strategic alliance (Todeva and Knoke 2005) discussion and impact on performance of the organization (Screiner et al. 2009).
My research question is:
How do stakeholders impact on business model innovation in commercialization of innovation?
The research method of my thesis is qualitative content analysis (Eriksson & Kovalainen 2015).
Research data research data of the study was collected during a research project and consist of transcripted interviews. First, I glanced the transcripted interviews to evaluate the content and empirical context of the data. I got understanding that interviewees had professions of health improving technical professions from laboratory worker to lawyer and IT-person. They had already adapted some business-like (Maier, Meyer, & Steinbereithner 2016) functions but were not commercialized completely their products and services. They were motivated to commercialize the bioinformation, but they have not had resources to do it completely. By these interpretations, I decided to study differences between for-profit and non-profit commercialization process and missions of organizations. In this phase, I decided to take directed approach (Hsieh 2005) to support my point of view in comparison of non-profit commercialization of innovation to becoming business- like to for-profit mission. I picked meaning units under the themes of business model canvas (BMC) (Osterwalder and Pigneur 2010). Themes helped in business model definition and to evaluate capabilities in utilizing the BMC in public health sector commercialization process. I noticed that stakeholders were not analyzed but they might be the most valuable resource in business model of the bioinformation. In BMC has place for stakeholders, customers and partners, and activities, resources, relationships, and channels.
To create high-performance organization to the new immature market, is analysis of the stakeholders and evaluation of importance of them needed. In stakeholder analysis appears connections to theories of transformation and formation of networks and alliances in addition to management capability. My contribution for business model innovation theory and practice is increased understanding of importance to define stakeholders. During this research process, I utilized creative state of mind and flexibility of content analysis methodology. I modified my research questions several times during thesis process. During the writing process, I re-read the meaning units and data to evaluate the validity of my thesis and sharpened the findings towards theory frame. My thesis reaches to waken up discussion of importance to define stakeholders in BMI and suggestion for further research topic in model creations and testing in definition process of stakeholders. Practice in BMI will benefit quickly adaptive topic of stakeholder importance evaluation.
2 THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
2.1 Commercialization of Innovation
Organizational performance (Weerawardena & Mavondo 2011; Abraham 2013; Afuah 2014) consists of management capability (Weerawardena & Mavondo 2011; Abraham 2013) of innovation commercialization process. Comparison of organizations in ability of launching innovations to market reveals capability to survive in competition and diverse and continuously changing market (Luo et al. 2007). Academic research increases knowledge of commercialization of innovation on its multitude disciplines (Datta, Mukherjee & Jessup 2014). This multitude discipline of approaches in commercialization of innovation research, challenges researchers in finding prior researches and in research gap definition. (Perkmann & Walsh 2007; Afuah 2014; Datta et al. 2014) Themes and terminology are not common to support research area definition by utilizing cross disciplinary researches (Datta et al. 2014). Despite increased trend of commercialization of innovation, in diverse fields of academic research there still is a huge amount of multidiscipline collaboration should be done to define themes to continue with defining research gaps from the point of view of each approach of disciplinaries (Datta et al. 2014).
Commercialization is usually seen as a process. Nature of it can be a project, when it has start and end or continuous development process. Innovation is an invention of new practices or devices and has to be managed to get it commercialized. Commercialization of innovation is researched in a multidiscipline field of science to increase knowhow and understanding quite unpredictable phenomenon of innovation vitality and organizational success. Commercialization of innovation consists of management, economy, strategy, marketing and many other domains of disciplines of sciences (Datta et al. 2014.)
Since 1980´s has been trend of intensive foreign competition, shortened product cycles with ever- growing demand of new technologies and seeking funding in competition. This trend increased interest to manage alliances strategically. Negative side of alliances is in inequity of organizations.
Size of organization, market accessibility and difference in resources makes alliance partners vulnerable to give more than get. Inequality may create dependence relationships and the smaller partner will suffer when alliance is terminated. Vyas et al. (1995, 57) suggest that alliances may be competitors, suppliers and other firms with desired resources. Successful alliance management should take into account four critical identifications. First is goal compatibility to define if goals are on same
directions, second is synergy among partners to achieve common goals. Third, Value chain, in a sense of input in alliance to build trust and relationships for the future success. Forth is Balancing contributions of partners in the areas of product development, manufacturing, and marketing are necessary so that no one partner dominates the alliance, equity of alliances increases achieving full performance of efficiency. Vyas et al. (1995, 58) defined also three barriers to achieve success through alliances. First is failure to adapt and understand “new style” of management, second is to fail in learning and understanding cultural differences and third is to fail in contracts and commitments. As conclusion, Vyas et al. (1995, 58) highlighted necessity of manage domestic and international business and strategic alliances (Vyas et al 1995.) Though this was written on 1995, are these alliance management researches still increasing trend in a field of management and organizational studies.
Maier et al. (2016) defined non-profit organizations (NPO) to become business-like is well- established global phenomenon. This is attractive topic for management and organization researches.
Undeveloped contexts are challenging for researchers in identifying research gaps and defining theory frames on previous findings in addition to methodological developments. On the paper is various key concepts clarified and three main focuses for research are defined. Focuses are causes of NPOs becoming business-like, organizational structures and processes of becoming business-like and third is effects of becoming business-like. Key concepts are business-like rhetoric, business-like organization of NPO´s core and support processes and business-like goals. These concepts are defined further to be dimensions called organizational, goals and rhetoric. Business-like organization means that functions in core of organization transfers to support processes in NPO and for example their personnel may transform more business-like. Business-like rhetoric is transforming communication to be more on narratives and visualizations. Becoming business-like goals are commercialization and conversion. Commercialization is narrowed under economization where money drives transformation of the organization to be more business-like. Causes of NPOs becoming business-like are exogenous causes, endogenous causes and causes at the organization/environment interface. As conclusion of the study increasing proactivity and getting heard by government through becoming business-like is important for organizational performance. On the opposite side is that dependency of government funding may weaken intra-organizational service-delivery.
Schreiner et al. (2007) made research called:” What really is alliance management capability and how does it impact alliance outcomes and success?” The research defined two main streams first is
“how alliance capability develops in firms” and second “investigates what elements specifically constitute a firm´s alliance capability”. They aimed to conceptualize alliance management capability
and created three aspects to deal with wide and diverse research topic. Aspects of alliance management are coordination, communication and bonding. Coordination ability implies knowledge and skills to match independencies between partners and manage alliances through the firm strategy.
Communication aspect of alliance management capability entails how credible and relevant knowhow and information delivering and receiving is. High performed communication policies and motives increases agile alliance management. Bonding between personal relationships gives stronger and deeper communication between firms, it helps in resource sharing in addition to diverse intangible support and help giving. Researchers discussed that understanding importance of alliance management capability improves value creation in business model innovation. All three aspects of alliance management are important in achieving goals in firms. Alliance management spreads firm joint activities through partner network and firm accessibility to contact relevant customers become more potential. (Schreiner at al. 2007.)
2.2 Business model literature on commercialization of innovation
Business model research aims to increase knowledge in organizational performance (Abraham 2013), which is challenging in very fast-changing environment (Wrigley & Straker 2016) and continuous adjusting of definitions (Tsoukas & Chia 2002). To create competitive advantages and modify strategies in continuously changing environment it needs theories and practical tools (Osterwalder &
Pigneur 2010; Abraham 2013; Afuah 2014). Practical implementation of business models and strategies is an everyday activity in business management (Osterwalder & Pigneur 2010; Abraham 2013; Afuah 2014), which needs support from research field (Perkmann & Walsh 2007).
Carayannis et al. (2015) defined business model innovation to be “foundations of corporate practice, strategic management and industrial economics”. A business model of an organization supports consistent communication inside organization as well as with stakeholders on ecosystem. Carayannis et al. (2015) mention in the study that Business Model Innovation literature is immature, and his attention is to show out what possibilities business model innovation gives for sustainability of an organization. His study paper focuses on organizational design and governance and the differences in roles of stakeholders. Stakeholders in this study are partners and customers. The theory frame of the study linked in business model innovation and organizational design with governance presence to be actors in sustainability creation. The study is focusing on their roles in innovation process in sustain organization business model innovation. Study object were manufacturers in developing countries.
Results of the study provide insights in maintaining sustainable ecosystem of an organization. Cross-
organizational and cross-functional collaboration are vital for high-performance organizations.
(Carayannis et al. 2015)
Abraham (2013), combining business model innovation and strategic analysis in managing high- performed organizations. Abraham discussed how strategy development and business model innovation are diverse management theories. Companies change their strategy through life cycle of organization and market cycle of their product and services. To achieve long-term success, are companies utilizing a strategic planning. Growing trend to start business model creation is to gain understanding of business model by focusing on value proposition and revenue streams.
Commercialization of innovation process generally starts by separating innovation from industry.
Aim is to design business model to make profit out of the innovation. Abraham brought into discussion whether divided schools, strategic planning and business model innovation, are diverse or can be utilized simultaneously. Business model innovation by BMC (Osterwalder and Pigneur 2010) does increase understanding of business but it cannot help in competitive advantage developing.
Strategic analyses are needed to fulfill the gap (Abraham 2013.) Maier et al. (2016) and Schreiner et al. (2007) discussed how increased managerial knowhow in strategy creation in stakeholder relationships, including competitors, is important in potentiality in achieving high-performance in organization.
Business models can be defined with multiple concerns which differs between businesses and schools of management. Common thinking is that business model is strategic definition of logic of the business (Casadesus-Masanell & Ricart 2010). One mission of business model is to define stakeholders and value creation to stakeholders (Osterwalder & Pigneur 2010; Casadesus-Masanell
& Ricart 2010; Afuah 2014; Wrigley & Straker 2016) To communicate and marketize business models for stakeholders are developed several visualized canvases (Abraham 2013) among multiple charts and figures. Johnson (2010) defined four elements of business model. Customer value proposition to effectively, conveniently and reliably solve customers’ problem with certain price, Profit formula to define economic issues, key resources combines every people, funding, products, facilities, technology and brand whit in customer gets proposed value, key processes defines value proposition producing routines. All these four elements depend on each other in changing and adjusting them to make them work as business model and to support strategy (Johnson 2010).
Osterwalder and Pigneur (2010) are gained wide reputation in business model innovation with Business Model Canvas (Table 1.) with nine building blocks. Their Business Model Canvas can be used in business design in a very starting point of commercialization of innovation. In the Table X, are nine building blocks: Key Partnerships, Key resources, Key activities, Customer segments, Channels, Value Proposition, Cost structure and Revenue streams. All these blocks can be fulfilled by emphasized concerns of the certain business and then continue by evaluation of missing parts to Table 1. Business Model Canvas by Osterwalder and Pigneur (2010)
gain understanding of the environment of the business (Osterwalder and Pigneur 2010). Abraham (2013) defined five sources for existing business model in change. Resource-driven change based on analysis of the key partners, offer-driven change based on analysis of value proposition, customer- driven change based on analysis of customer segments, finance-driven change based on analysis of the revenue stream and cost structure and multiple-epicenter-driven change based on analysis of the value proposition, customer segments and key partnership (Abraham 2013). Instead of optional use of strategy management and business models may be beneficial to use both management approaches as parallel (Abraham 2013; Casadesus-Masanell & Ricart 2010; Wrigley & Straker 2016).
2.3 Stakeholder literature on commercialization of innovation
As in chapter 2.1. I introduced challenges in research gap definition in commercialization of innovation, is definition creation even more challenged in narrower approach, in stakeholder relationship research. Stakeholders roles and influence in organizational performance is studied multidiscipline and separate trends from the diverse approaches and aims. In this chapter I try to combine stakeholder research literature with open approach in terminology of stakeholder to create and define the gap in stakeholder research in commercialization of innovation. Stakeholder is an umbrella definition for any organization or individual which has activities with object organization, relationship with stakeholders can be formal or informal.
Table 2. A typology of university-industry links by Perkmann and Walsh (2007)
Interorganizational relationships are studied from the stakeholder role diversity point of view.
Perkmann and Walsh (2007) have studied academic-industry relationships in open innovation.
Perkmann and Walsh (2007) researched practices in research centers were collaboration between university and industry is typical. University-industry relationships are transforming through mechanisms such as technology transfer and human mobility. In the study were emphasized two main points. First was to search and match processes between business units and universities, and the other was collaborative relationship management and organization of the research object. Perkmann and Walsh (2007) defined university industry links to be seven main links. These links were transferred into a table (Table 2) with high, medium and low relationship typology in extent of relational involvement sense (Perkmann and Walsh 2007.)
McLaughlin (2009) pondered optional names of stakeholders and impact of it in stakeholder relationships. In this study they concentrated on customer relationships between British social work and their end-users. They found out that label of the customer describes relationship of the customer, not the person. These label options were service user, patient, consumer, customer, client, end-user, expert by experience (McLaughlin 2009).
Todeva and Knoke (2005) made a study about strategic alliances and collaboration models. In their study results concerned development of strategic alliances and formalized interorganizational relationship management. The research provided future research directions on partner selection, networks patterns and processes as well as understanding the integration in alliances and dynamical development management issues. The study was motivated by importance of understanding motives in alliance formulation to achieve advantages. As they wrote that companies in the Fortune 500 list were strategically built inter-corporate relationships. Lack of understanding in formation process of strategic alliances inspired them to make literature review with strategic alliance formation approach.
They made a list of the 13 concepts of strategic alliances and organizational fields (Todeva and Knoke 2005.) Todeva and Knoke (2005) discussed formation and implementation of strategic alliances as well as strategic alliances outcomes. As a conclusion they emphasized that strategic alliances are beneficial and easy to combine social capital to achieve collective goals. They discuss importance to understand partner selection, diversity between partners and network patterns and processes.
Social innovation development is important concern of non-profit organizations (NPO). To keep development ongoing, they need cross-sectoral collaboration. Lack of resources drives NPOs to form alliances to benefit cross-functionality in resource management. Sanzo, Álvarez, Rey & García (2015) researched cross-sector partnerships as business-non-profit relationships and evaluated their
influence on the performance of non-profit partner. Cross-sector partnerships are new and powerful form of collaboration in a field of social innovations. Influence of partnerships reach out to innovation development and organizational capabilities. Data collection of the study was made as a survey for 325 Spanish foundations and analyzed as multisampling and structural equation technique. As a result, they find out close relationships had commitment and trust and partners fostered development of innovations. Cross-sector partnerships has studied as collaborative alliances where government, businesses and civil society relationships. These relationships are business-nonprofit, government- business, government-nonprofit and business-nonprofit-government. Previous studies are concerning relationship models with integration, cooperation and competition approach, new relationship research trend is focusing on more effects of roles in relationships. As a conclusion of the paper, social innovation practices combine collaboration between for-profit sector, governments, NPOs, citizens, social networks and/or customers. (Sanzo et al. 2015)
2.4 Synthesis
Theory background of my thesis dives in the research field of innovation management. As my curriculum in innovation management in faculty of business predicts, is my approach commercialization of innovation from the point of view of business management. My aim is to explore stakeholder research in commercialization of innovation with boundaries of business model research. Topic of my thesis has been growing trend in management and organization research during last decades, hence scholars has made several literature reviews to define research gaps (Bocken, Short, Rana & Evans 2014; Datta et al. 2014; Carayannis et al. 2015). Stakeholders impact on organizational performance and alliance management capability are in a center of discussion in management research, including diverse terms of objectives among schools and disciplines. Current trend in management in practice is to transfer non-profit public organizations to become business- like. In Finland, the trend appears in national politics in government´s decision making and in social and health service renewal. The atmosphere of public sector change effects on every citizen and creates attractive research topics for researchers. In my thesis the object is commercialization of bioinformation. In this turbulent change of management methods and new technology knowhow of bioinformation, I have opportunity to make explorative study of commercialization of innovation.
Business models are in a core of commercialization process. Business models are ´blueprints´ of organization and help in communication with stakeholders. In addition to economy and resource
issues, are stakeholders defined in business models, too. Because a business model works as data for decision makers, in organization itself and stakeholders, should it be visualized and marketed well.
These issues are components of management concerns and in the end, organizational performance is the measurement for management capability (Weerawardena & Mavondo 2011). Business model innovation and strategic management has been separated management approaches, but during this century has practice combined these different management approaches (Abraham 2013). As one of the important building blocks (Osterwalder & Pigneur 2010) of business model is stakeholders, I found it interesting to study more. For theory frame of my thesis I chose point of view to be wide understanding of stakeholders. They might be paying customers, end-users, funders, competitors in collaboration, suppliers in addition to any actor with active connection. Labeling the stakeholders defines roles of them (McLaughlin 2009), which has impact on organizational performance.
Stakeholder research includes role, activity and relationship modeling with individual and network approaches (Perkmann, Tartari, McKelvey, Autio, Broström, D´Este, Fini, Geuna, Grimaldi, Huges, Krabel, Kitson, Llerena, Lissoni, Salter & Sbrero 2012; Weerawardena & Mavondo 2011). Benefits for organization in managing networks through stakeholders is intention to achieve resource availability (Todeva & Knoke 2005) and manage knowhow transferring (Perkmann & Walsh 2007) and alliance formation (Todeva & Knoke 2005).
Figure 1. Theory frame of my thesis
The theory frame of my thesis consists of four, partly overlapped, theories of management research.
Stakeholder management research is trend of management and organization research and has challenge in diverse terminology of multiple discipline research fields. In innovation management research, stakeholder management belongs under the business model innovation research. Business model innovation is a young research area and can be attached under wide concept of commercialization of innovation. Innovation management is the umbrella research field of commercialization of innovation, business model innovation and stakeholder management (Figure 1). These subfields of researches benefit independent and multidiscipline utilization for research gap and terminology definition.
3 METHODOLOGY
3.1 Methodological approach
I chose qualitative content analysis (Eriksson & Kovalainen 2015) with directed approach (Hsieh &
Shannon 2005) to be the method in my thesis. Qualitative content analysis is common research method in business research and is suitable for novice researcher (Eriksson & Kovalainen 2015;
Erlingson & Bruziawicz 2017). Directive approach starts with code creation from theory frame and codes develop during data analysis among research findings (Hsieh & Shannon 2005; Vaismoradi, Turunen & Bondas 2013). As my research is explorative and aims to get interpretation of a phenomenon, is the qualitative content analysis research method flexible enough to reach into valid masters´ thesis.
I read the transcripted interviews and got several ideas from it for my thesis to focus on. Interviews were not done by me, so the content was new to me. The theoretical background I collected during re-reading of the interviews, helped me to narrow down research focus of the. Starting with themes (Hsieh & Shannon 2005) for analysis, I created them from nine building blocks of Business Model Canvas (Table 1.) (Osterwalder and Pigneur 2010). During analysis, I thought through managerial and identity theories and chose to split the BMC (Osterwalder and Pigneur 2010). I left out the parts of BMC (Osterwalder and Pigneur 2010) concerning economic issues, cost structure and revenue streams, to keep my focus more on aiming to understand stakeholders, relationships and key activities.
I picked meaning units (Eriksson & Kovalainen 2015) themes to categorize them further. In formulation of categories, I used background theories of my thesis. Focus was on identifying and labeling of stakeholders and description of activities. Through these categories I finally got key findings. After completed categorization I re-read the data to feel comfortable (Hsieh & Shannon 2005) with results towards research data and theory frame.
3.2 Data collection
My research data consists of seven transcripted interviews (Table 3). Interviews were made in one biobank in Finland and interviewees were employees with diverse professions, job tasks and responsibilities with diverse backgrounds and connections to another organizations. These interviews were made during May 2017 in a research project. I got the transcriptions for this thesis.
Interviews were in Finnish, and transcriptions are in Finnish. This increases the reliability of research when I, as researcher, am Finnish, too. I translated the meaning units and made the analysis in English.
3.3 Analysis of the data
Directed content analysis gets its themes from theory background and chosen by researcher. Themes can change and be modified during the analysis process until the researcher is comfortable with research findings (Hsieh & Shannon 2005.) In analysis process I followed eight step procedure. They are preparation of data, defining the theme of analysis, developing categories and coding scheme, pre-testing the coding scheme on sample, coding all the text, assessing the consistency of coding employed, drawing inferences on the basis of coding or themes and presentation of results (Datt 2016).
I prepared research data of my thesis by evaluation of the content. The research data consists of seven transcripted interviews. I evaluated the transcriptions to be qualified for my thesis. The interviews were in Finnish. During the evaluation I simultaneously got familiarized with data. I got understanding that they did not speak about business model in a way that I, as a business student, had used to. Especially lack of terms concerning business model confused me. I got interested in exploring business models in health sector and public sector.
Table 3. Data collection, transcripted interviews
I chose directed content analyze with deductive approach. Deductive approach gave me opportunity to make subjective interpretations for results (Hsieh & Shannon 2005). Next step was to narrow down my research topic. I pondered theories and themes of my research as well as research questions. I chose Osterwalder´s and Pigneur´s (2010) theory of business models and I took themes from the nine building blocks of their business model canvas. Then I cleared my focus through business model innovation. I got interested in how decision making and management in strategy creation happened in public organization. Then I noticed that organizations need identity to create business or business- like operations with stakeholders. One big challenge appeared to be, that do they really understand what customer means and what activities customer relationships have in business-like operations. My choice was to focus on relationships between object organization and stakeholders, including customers, and define roles of stakeholders through activities between stakeholders and object organization.
During research question definition, I re-read transcriptions. After deciding to start with themes among BMC (Osterwalder and Pigneur 2010) blocks, I made pre-testing. It seemed to be working, hence I started working on data by picking meaning units. After picking words and sentences from transcriptions to be meaning units for analysis, I categorized meaning units and translated them in English. I noticed that relationships and activities were attached to each other in research data. When comparing my notifications to BMC (Osterwalder and Pigneur 2010), these Relationships and Activities were on opposite sides from Value Proposition in the middle. Despite of broken BMC, the finding supported the theory frame of my thesis. In the next phase, I focused on searching hints of activities towards stakeholder identification and labeling in addition to relationship descriptions.
Towards practice in business model innovation, I aimed to clarify stakeholder roles in business models and find evidence of importance for business model innovation in increasing management capabilities and organizational performance. Results of this content analysis are presented in chapter 4.
Research data is gathered during incomplete commercialization process and includes employees´
comments and notifications of the present situation, future expectations and potentialities, in addition to their experiences. Interviewees were not business management professionals, which affects their vocabulary and challenged me as researcher to read between lines. Hence it reveals the maturity level of business model innovation. In sight of business management researcher, it was beneficial to gain understanding of public health sector commercialization process. Cultures between traditional for- profit and non-profit organization are diverse. I studied the business model of a biobank through
discussion of combined stakeholder analysis and business model analysis to provide important data for commercialization of innovation research.
4 RESULTS OF THE STAKEHOLDER AND BUSINESS MODEL ANALYSIS
4.1 Empirical context of the study
The research object of my study is a Finnish biobank. Mission for biobanks is to collect, store and research biological samples and data for medical improvements. The object biobank is focusing on human blood and tissues. In addition to samples, their storage consists of bioinformation, which means genome information and personalized information. The purpose of my study is to find out specifications in commercialization of bioinformation in comparison of umbrella concept commercialization of innovation. Biobanks are for medical research and product development for health care and health promotion purposes (Biopankki.fi). Following citation from research data of my thesis reveals the ultimate mission and opportunities to improve health. Original purposes of the changing organization are present in actions (Mayer et al. 2016).
” And of course, it is important to get quick answers. For example, in a case of breast cancer, biopsies go right away, during the surgery, purpose is to get results immediately to make decisions during operation. It is the present-day… … then we are able to make decisions during the surgery. I think that this is the growing trend /
…Ja toki ne on tärkeitä, asioita mitkä pitäs saada, nopeat vastaukset. Mut onhan esimerkiks rintasyövän tapauksessa lähtee saman tien koepalat, kun on leikkaus, pystytään antaa sen mukaan sit jatketaan sitä leikkausta. Sehän on sitä nykypäivää kans mikä on…. … sit pystytään kuitenkin, tietää et mitä kannattaa tehä siit leikkauksesta, mihin suuntaan mennään. Mä luulen et siihen enemmän ja enemmän, siirrytään. ” (P4)
Finnish biobanks have high standard bioinformation which attracts international pharmaceutical companies. Bioinformation consists of genome data and personalized data and is the basis of medical treatment research. The trend of this time is to find effective personalized medicine for cost and result efficient treatment instead of medicine suitable for most. Pharmaceutical companies are international and act globally. For this demand has this young industry of bioinformation to answer. Competition of biobanks in Finland is tight and success leans on scientific performance and continuous development of organization. Threat of losing competition in global funding competition is realistic.
Tens of million Euros has already been shared globally for biobanks with diverse expertise and business models. Biobank law regulates activities of biobanks and gives boundaries for utilizing
bioinformation in business. Global pharmaceutical companies are investing to biobank research in Finland approximately from three to twenty million Euros during 2017-2020. To achieve funding from this expected money, will develop of biobanks to be done. Infrastructure and ethical committees, in addition to register law renewal are in emphasized focus in development. Beneficiaries in biobanking will stay on improving health care processes to be more efficiency. (Ranki-Pesonen &
Soppi 2014).
”We have many moving parts going on, apparently biobank law is under renewal process for the sake of the GDPR. And then there is completely new genome law under construction, which content is not available yet/ … meil on, tosi monta liikkuvaa osaa nyt menossa et ilmeisesti biopankkilakia jollain tavalla nyt uudistetaan tän tietosuoja- asetuksen takia. Sit on kokonaan uus genomilaki valmisteilla, jonka sisällöst ei vielä oo mitään tietoo…”(P5)
Permission to make profit with utilization of bioinformation is important for biobank. Environment in for-profit private sector allows commercialization of bioinformation and give space for business model innovation for biobanks. Both sectors have demand for alliance formation and network creation. Multiple industries are combined in biobank activities and connections. Motivation, among organizations and networks, to improve health and make profit for biobanks, creates opportunities for strategic alliance formation (Todeva & Knoke 2005; Teng & Das 2008; Perkmann et al 2012). Next citation from my research data reveals that discussion on network formation is led by government.
”When they enacted the biobank law, they had motivation to create knowledge- networks, so more and more is that if we have now already collaboration outside of data system and in analysis, and of course lab-analysis and stuff like that, then there is formulating networks that we did not expect to form../ biopankkilakia säädettäessäkin sillon haettiin tavallaan juuri sitä et syntys tämmösiä osaamisverkostoja ja sen, tyyppist toimintaa, et kyllä, sen tyyppist varmaan enemmän ja enemmän et jos meil on nyt tietojärjestelmän puolella on yhteistyötä ja sit on analyysipuolella on yhteistyötä ja, toki labra-analyyseja ja kaikkee tän tyyppistä niin, sillä puolella on ja, syntyy vähän ehkä semmosiakin mitä ei alun perin, osattu ajatellakaan tai ainakaan kaikki osannu aatella sitten että..” (P6)
Understanding of original culture of public health care and bioinformation research (academic), which are non-profit organizations, is important in organizational change (Maier et al. 2016).
Traditional networks transform in hospitals and research organizations caused by new unit built inside the organization. It gives opportunities in strategic alliance formation through human transferring between organizations with multiple tasks and duties simultaneously (Perkmann et al 2012).
” Like this clinical data service formulated inside the hospital, which is its task to collect data and form a pool, and then offer it. Biobank is one big customer, but only one because the government needs quite a lot of things, especially cost structure things and economics need data, and clinics need bioinformation data/ tämmönen kliinisen tiedon palvelu muodostu sairaalan sisälle jonka tällä hetkellä sen tehtävä on nyt kerätä sitä dataa muodostaa tämmönen allas ja tarjota sitä kaikennäkösille tahoille biopankki on yks suurin asiakas mutta yks ainoastaan koska myöskin hallinto tarvii kaikennäkösiä etenkin näitä kustannuskysymyksiä ja taloushallinto tarvii ja muut (johta)(-) [0:32:42] klinikat tarvii tämmösii datoja.” (P7)
The next citation from the research data, reveals that it is possible to make bioinformation to be the merchandize with no personal data. In commercialization of bioinformation can several options be considered. Hence, if regulations limit the utilization of bioinformation in commercialization, it is important to have external services as options to commercialize (Weerawardena & Mavondo 2011).
Luckily, knowhow transfer can be merchandized as well in commercialization of bioinformation.
Demand of special expertise in handling and analyzing the data is emerging in next citation.
”And it was a success story with immediate benefit for citizens and it was only the data in it /se oli semmonen menestystarina missä ihan selkeesti oli tämmönen suora kansalaiselle hyödyksi oleva juttu ja siinä tosiaan oli pelkästä datasta kyse.” (P7) Hanna Lehtimäki et al. (2017) studied challenges and opportunities of biobank commercialization.
Biobanks are public sector unit and Auria, their research object is owned by three health care districts and university of Turku, which gives practical limitations while Auria is involved to earn half of their expenses by commercial actions with private sector enterprises. Findings in the research was that Auria had close collaboration with universities and research centers and were developing business activities. They understood that they need to develop networks and policies to fill involvement in business-based funding achieving. Auria has active role in infrastructure maintenance of the biomedical and development of better medical treatment and still they need to focus on commercial collaboration and marketing biobank services. After Auria was founded two years before the data collection, were these couple of years showed that field of biobanking is different than managers
thought. Collaboration in R&D is vital and needs strategic management to create and maintenance long distance contracts with partners and investors (Lehtimäki et al. 2017.)
4.2 Results of Stakeholder analysis
Key findings of stakeholder analysis were mixed maturity levels of stakeholder definitions including lack of strategy in stakeholder management. Some stakeholders with existing relationships with the object biobank were demonstrated with activities and capabilities in providing the value proposition.
Some stakeholders were described with illustration of potential customer or partner relationship, hence activities in relationships were described optimistically. Unfamiliar culture of for-profit commercialization process was adapted on low level, despite lack of resources. Understanding the power of networks and contacts in business-like operations is on level that can be exploit in business model innovation with employees of the object biobank.
Identification of employees´ own roles is in important role in team building and trust between co- workers is already tight. In relationship maintenance and trust formation in stakeholder relationships is important that expectations of stakeholders come true. To lead relationships, includes identification of own role and strategic of company necessary (Morente, Cereceda, Luna-Crespo & Artiga, 2011).
When meeting customer in phase of term negotiations, turns the communication more person to person level communication from organizational level. Still protocols of tightly supervised industry keep the rhythm of negotiation. Capability to exploit environment creates the level of management capability. Project manager´s management capability includes leading his/her own team and delegating tasks among roles, to support high-performance aim. Evaluation of the organizational resources for an activity is easier to make with evaluation of the access to external resources through networks. Next citation presents project managers multiple concerns in business negotiations, including lawyer has important role as resource in negotiations. Next citation includes the sensitive phase of closing the deal.
“My responsibility is to take care of contacts with existing and potential customers, I answer to questions in a role of project manager, I carry the contracts to scientific control group, I present them in there. Then I negotiate with customers about contacts.
We have a part time lawyer who assists in contracts. We have standard contract basis which works in most cases, but some (customers) want to use contracts of their own and it needs lawyer / Mä hoidan tietysti yhteyksii näihin, nykyisiin asiakkaisiin ja
tuleviin asiakkaisiin ja, vastailen kyselyihin ja projektipäällikön ominaisuudessa, vien näitä hakemuksii smitten, käsittelen niit täällä ja vien ne sit sinne tieteelliseen ohjausryhmään esittelen niitä, siellä ja sitten.. hoidan nää neuvottelut niitten asiakkaiden kanssa sitten, sopimusasioista ja meil on 50-prosenttinen lakimies joka siin sit avustaa, ja on mukana. Meil on semmonen standardisopimuspohja että yleensä ne menee, aika mukavasti mut sit jotkut haluaa käyttää omaa sopimuspohjaa, ja siinä on sitten enemmän vääntämistä et se on sit lakimiehen heiniä. ” (P1)
Accessibility of the product or service can be blocked with regulations and complex protocols and immature policies. The networks in the field might terminate when facing the inefficient or impossible relationships (Aarikka-Stenross, Sandberg & Lehtimäki 2014). Management capabilities and agile business model will create competitive advantage (Rothaermel & Deeds 2006; Schreiner et al. 2008).
Alliance management capability of the biobank shows through preventing blocks of the negotiations.
”And then we have, public social and health data secundary utilization law, coming…
… with suggestion to have the only one authority to handle the patient and social register data…./ …Ja sit on vielä tää, julkisten, sosiaali- ja terveydenhuollon, tietojen toissijaiskäyttöö koskeva laki … … jossa siis ehdotetaan sellasta et ois yks keskeinen lupaviranomainen, oletettavasti THL, jonka kautta pystys hakemaan potilasrekisteritietoja ja sosiaalihuollon asiakastietoja ja näin poispäin.” (P5) Exploitation of the emerged need of alliance formation with the emerging lack of efficient communication policies (Rothaermel and Deeds 2006) creates possibility to manage strategically resources through networks. Being present in forums and active in communication in discussion of policies and aiming to best practices in terms of contract is possible to form trust and strategic alliances to become impactor of the field of business and industry. In commercialization of bioinformation is beneficial to evaluate existing policies and contacts (Perkmann et al 2012) and adapt those to business-like strategy (Maier et al. 2016). Policy creation and developing of existing policies from parallel relationships would be efficient. In the next citation appears strong organizational relationship with communication policies and lack of organizationally efficient communication channels. Challenge in overlapping routines between two big organizations with multiple connections between units, is how to manage them efficiently. Communication happens strongly on organizational level and there is lack of person to person communication.
” It can be an anonymous company, when we have made collaboration several times before, in different discipline, or from Finland to Sweden or somewhere else, it seems to be that people do not know each other. Nor that someone from their company has already collaborated with us/ Ja on se nyt vaik sama yrityskin on niin, joku lääkeyritys nimeltämainitsematon. Kun ollaan tehty yhteistyötä kumminkin tosi mones projektissa, mut sit ne on eri, erikoisaloilta vaikka, tai sitten Suomesta ja Ruotsista tai jostain muualta, eihän ne ihmiset siel sisäsestikään tunne toisiaan. Eikä ees välttämättä tiedä et joku on jo tehny meiän kans jotain heiän oman firman sisällä ” (P1)
Customer relationship formation during the negotiations is important in early stage of business model innovation. Activities and evaluation for need of resources gives information for rest of the business model. In the next citation diverse customer behaviours chanllenge resources and managament.
Labeled customer segments help in preparation in negotiations and increase perforormance of the object biobank. (MacLaughlin et al. 2009)
” Of cource, if it is more challenging situation, I have tried to call the customer to make quick decisions to make the negotiations continue faster… … it can vary from genaral contracts to tailored cotracts and frame contract for several project with simpler contracts …/ Toki jos on semmonen hankalampi tilanne niin sit kyl, oon pyrkiny siihen että vähintäänkin puhelimitse pääsis koska se yleensä vie sit taas asiaa nopeemmin eteenpäin, … . Mut kyl se voi, vaihdella, ei projektikohtasiin sopimuksiin ehkä yleensä oo niin hirveen kauaa menny mut meil oli joitakin tämmösii raamityyppisii sopimuksii jotka on tavallaan, on semmonen yleinen viitekehys sovittu ja sit siihen tulee joku, tutkimusprojekti niin sen alle sovitaan sitten vaan semmonen yksinkertasempi projektisopimus.” (P5)
Bioinformation management is one of the most complicated part of project. Lending sensitive bioinformation for foreign company challenges trust and ethics. Regulations and contract terms define actions of stakeholder, but do they are committed to obey them. Alliance management capability (Rothaermel & Deeds 2006)) in trust formation is challenged in commercialization of bioinformation.
The next citation demonstrates that similar stakeholders might have differences in trust level, which has impact on terms of contract.
” with research group or company we make contract about what is the research, what is the purpose of it and are the analysis done here and do we give the results, do they need information for themselves and what is the duration of the project, and they are not allowed to use the information outside of the contract, and destroying and returning of the leftovers and so on../tutkijaryhmän tai yrityksen kans tehään sopimus tietysti siitä että, mikä on se tutkimus mitä siinä sitten tuetaan ja, mitä siihen liittyen, tehdäänkö täällä analyysit ja, luovutetaan tulokset vai, tarviiko he dataa omaan pyörittelyyn ja, vai miten tehdään ja kuin kauan se projekti kestää ja, että dataa ei saa käyttää mihkään muuhun ja jos on saatu näytteitä ne pitää tuhota tai palauttaa sitten ylijäämät ja tämmöstä “(P5)
Development of tools for core tasks of the organization needs evaluation of resources, including money, time and knowhow. Alliance formation and alliance management capability increases the access to resources (Vyas et al. 1995; Todeva & Knoke 2005). Balanced win-win situation in relationship and common values in missions of the partners or customers tightens the relationship and with capable management networks can widen and formulate relationships for the future activities (Sanzo et al. 2015). In the next citation, program coding has started with resources of the core team and then outsourced the program to software house, for them to develop and maintain the program.
In this situation is evaluation of core tasks highlighted. In this, important stakeholder is software house, and relationship activity is emerged as traditional policy in a field of coding. Though starting the coding of the program was done by object organization.
”these fellows have coded some programs by themselves to get started, afterwards these programs are licensed to software house to develop them further and continue maintenance, this is the only way to process because we do not want to be a software house, it is not our thing/ nää kaverit kun on, koodannu jotain juttuja täällä itse et on päästy liikenteeseen niin, niit on sit lisensoitu Softatalolle joka on luvannu sitten taas, kehittää eteenpäin ja ylläpitää et se on melkein se ainoo tapa, jos ei halua itsellään pitää softakehitysyksikköö ja joka ei ehkä tän kokosessakaan, toiminnassa se, keskeinen juttu… ”(P5)
In evaluation of activities, between stakeholders and object organization, towards benefit for high- performance might be challenging. Some relationships are not emerging immediate actions but are important to notify. Some activities are urgent and need action with short preparation. Evaluation of mediate and immediate impact on business model strengthens value proposition and resource
management. After definition process of stakeholder roles, it is easier to focus on other themes of business model innovation. Updating the stakeholder roles is important in continuous business model innovation. (Partanen, Chetty & Rajala 2014; Vilpponen 2016).
Mediate stakeholder activities emerge through networks. Influencing to macro and meso environment through personal and organizational networks need long-term activities and effort (Morente et al 2011; Aarikka-Stenross et al. 2014; Sanzo et al. 2015). In next citation, is the object biobank relaying on long-term contact. Mentioned meetings are for standard creation and supervising regulations. In meetings specialists represent multiple organizations and industries.
”yeah and X is in job and she traipses in ISO work groups and others. I think she is the representative of Finland and is the expert of the field/ Juu ja X. on siinä työssä ja hän ramppaa tuolla noin näissä (ISO-)työryhmissä [0:13:09] ja muussa. Et hän on ihan sitten taitaa olla ihan Suomen edustajana et hän on tän alan ekspertti”(P7) Trust in future contracts with paying customers is emerging. These contacts must be managed with high standard or they will vanish. If relationship formation does not start immediately, will the risk of losing contracts for some other bioinformation seller be highly possible. Relaying on existing demand is not reliable. Acquisition of new customers must to be active and continuous. First step to failure is self-confident attitude (Vyas et al. 1995). It blocks the development in spite of continuously changing environment demands management.
” person Y wondered back then that there was no need for advertising. That we are existing, the word spread like wild fire and we received requests for contacts and so on. So we haven’t got need for marketing, because we have already five big pharma companies knocking on the door / Henkilö Y ainakin sillon aikanaan ihmetteli sitä että sanottiin että eipä tarvinnu paljon mainostaa. Että siellä sitten kun alko sana leviämään sinne tai hänkin muistaakseni vähän ihmetteli et hänkään ei oo varma et miten se tieto kulkeutu mut sit alko olemaan yhteydenottoja ja semmosii et ei täs tarvinnu mitään mainostyötä tehdä kun oven takana oli jo viis big pharma -yritystä koputtelemassa” (P7)
The original customer segment is citizens. They have another role in provider of samples. This mixed role of citizens as stakeholder needs strong alliance management (Rothaermel & Deeds 2006).
Though value of biobank and commercialization of bioinformation is in citizens´ health improvement, citizens feel that bioinformation research and medical development is distant. Understanding of
capabilities and needs in heath improvement emerge during illnesses. On the other hand, fear of misused bioinformation is present. Mediate alliance management through national attitude campaign might ease the civilians´ involvement. It has emerged in stakeholder analysis, that civilians have diverse roles. They are customers as end-users in addition that they are donors as providers. This complex stakeholder relationship needs deeper analysis and multiple definitions and labels (McLaughlin 2009; Rothaermel & Deeds 2006).
” And then about citizens, hopefully understanding the role of bioinformation donor is on higher level in five years, but citizens are problematic, they really are not interested in this./ Sitten kansalaisten suuntaan vielä viiden vuoden päästä toivottavasti tämä ymmärrys on vähän vielä korkeemmalla tasolla mutta kansalaiset on vähän ongelmallisii siitä kun ei niitä nyt niin kauheesti kiinnosta.” (P7)
Relationships with citizens, as donors, is complex (McLaughlin 2009; Morente et al. 2011). Consent defines the activity of the relationship. Legislation is changing in biobanking, and consent is under development to guide and regulate the functions in utilization of bioinformation. Sample collection cannot be done if donor does not sign the consent. In next citation, discussion concerns difficulty of consent collection and distance relationship with donor. Crucial activities in this relationship type are consent and sample collection. These activities are in the core of commercialization of bioinformation. Under development and action plan is consent collection for the future sample collection situations. In addition to changing biobank law, the content and the length of consent were changing during the interviews of the research data. Speaker points out the diverse interpretation of the consent in practice. In consideration is if declining the consent is valid if person did not sign the refusal. On the other hand, is the present practice that consent must be signed before it is valid. In unclear declination case, interpretation is that consent is not valid. The challenge in relationship management is in distant relationship and lack of resources in practices on health care centers and hospitals.
” Yeah, it depends on how it goes, [ chuckles] that can we continue biobanking with this wide consent, and we have discussed that these are complete opposites. The wide consent or the consent with assumption that everyone is donor, if a person does not decline it. If it happens, then 20 per cents of persons in hospitals get the invitation to send the consent. 20 per cents of them sign it but actually no one declines it./ Niin riippuu nyt miten täs käy, [naurahtaa] et voidaanko jatkaa tätä biopankkitoimintaa täl laajal suostumuksella ja, sit taas toisaalta kun sitäkin on pohdittu että, nää on
