Beyond competition: Exploring collaboration for entrepreneurship in healthcare organizations

Previous research suggests that entrepreneurial opportunities in a given industry are strongly affected by the environmental conditions that both individuals and organizations face. In the healthcare industry, we observe a marked tendency of providers to become more and more interdependent with other organizations within the sector, regardless the specific institutional framework regulating the health system. This chapter presents the various forms of planned and unplanned collaborative arrangements that healthcare organizations can adopt. Then, we discuss the main trajectories of change observed in hospitals and the conditions under which such changes may trigger the formation of “centers of excellence” engaged in the commercial exploitation of medical knowledge. We also discuss how planned and unplanned collaborative arrangements sustain initiatives aimed at developing and exploiting new knowledge. An example of how managerial interventions can sustain these emerging forms of entrepreneurship is also provided