Business venture sensemaking on the future value of personalised medicine: healthcare innovation in a multistakeholder setting

Abstract

Advancing healthcare innovation involves deep uncertainty for the engaged stakeholders. We present an inductive study on business venture sensemaking and its role in the shaping of an early-stage healthcare innovation. We address the understudied phenomenon through the context of personalised medicine. We analyse qualitative data that comprises 23 semi-structured interviews conducted with key organisational stakeholders in Finland involved in personalised medicine including business ventures, the public sector and academia. Our results show that stakeholders involved in personalised medicine engage in multistakeholder dialogue through prospective sensemaking. This sensemaking includes three antenarratives: 1) the anticipation of value prospects, 2) the integration for value co-creation, and 3) institutionalisation of value expectations. We find that venture participation in the early stages of innovation is constrained by the academic and public sector stakeholders’ sensemaking, especially during the construction of frameworks and associated understandings. We illuminate the dynamics of prospective sensemaking and multistakeholder interests and provide insights into the required collaborative efforts to navigate ambiguity, complexity and uncertainty. This study contributes to healthcare innovation literature through the provision of an increased understanding about future value creation during early-stage healthcare innovation, viewed as an incremental process towards the future through collaborative multistakeholder dialogue. We provide a framework for complex multistakeholder dynamics in early-stage healthcare innovation.