CaringTV® value creation for elderly people in Sendai, Japan

Japan is expected to be the country with the highest percentage of elderly people in the world in 2025. In order to ensure quality care services for elderly people, Tohoku Fukushi University (TFU), Helsinki School of Economics, Laurea University of Applied Sciences and the cities Espoo, Vantaa and Sendai have established the research collaboration “Active Project”. Within this project, TFU aims at transferring the Finnish CaringTV® concept to Sendai. CaringTV is a service for secure broadcasting of interactive programmes and e-services. The purpose of this study is to describe the potential creation of CaringTV value for elderly people in Sendai, Japan. Concepts which constitute the theoretical background of this study are: CaringTV, product value and elderly people in Sendai. Hence, this study looks at CaringTV as health care/social service from a product-developmental approach. The research questions are “What kind of value can elderly people in Sendai gain from CaringTV?” and “How can CaringTV create this value?”. This study is a methodological linkage between qualitative social and marketing research. It rests upon symbolic interactionism and aims at the exploration of subjective viewpoints of the research participants. Three focused interviews with elderly people and their family members and two focus groups with elderly care professionals and experts were implemented in Sendai. The data was analysed inductively to develop findings on the research questions. Thereby, Mayring’s reductive qualitative content analysis method was applied. The data contained much personal information on the elderly participants, so findings on their subjects of value and challenges in life could be developed. Subjects of value for the elderly participants are: physical and mental health, social well-being, independence, accessible environment, activities and financial stability. Challenges in life are: physical and mental health restrictions, lack of social connections, limited independence, access difficulties,lack of activities, financial difficulties and challenges when dealing with technical devices. The main set of findings, however, centres on the creation of CaringTV value. Hereby, two types of categories could be developed: value opportunity attribute categories and enabler categories. Three types of value opportunity attributes define the possible value features of CaringTV in Sendai: (1) basic conceptual attributes (e.g. interactivity), (2) device-related attributes (e.g. high image resolution) and (3)attributes with personal impact on the elderly user (e.g. social participation). Five types of enabler categories describe features which enable the value: (1) the elderly CaringTV users themselves (e.g. elderly who live alone), (2)professional contact partners (e.g. care managers), (3) other contact partners (e.g. family members), (4) interaction content (e.g. services to support mental health) and (5)organizational features (e.g. university as CaringTV provider). A value opportunity attribute and enabler model was developed to illustrate their interdependence. Recommendations are formulated in the discussion of the study on how to use the findings in the CaringTV transfer process