Beneficiary contact and innovation The relation between contact with patients and medical innovation under different institutional logics.pdfVIP

Research Policy 45 (2016) 1512–1523 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Research Policy journal homepage: /locate/respol Bene?ciary contact and innovation: The relation between contact with patients and medical innovation under different institutional logics Oscar Llopis a,?, Pablo D’Este b a ESC Rennes School of Business, 2 Rue Robert d’Arbrissel, 35000 Rennes, France b INGENIO (CSIC-UPV), Universitat Politècnica de València, Camino de Vera s/n, 46022 Valencia, Spain article info Article history: Received 8 February 2016 Received in revised form 2 March 2016 Accepted 6 March 2016 Available online 24 March 2016 Keywords: Contact with patients Medical innovation Translational research Institutional theory Bene?ciary contact abstract The recent policy agenda to enhance translational research in biomedicine emphasizes the need to promote interactions among all the actors involved in the medical innovation process. While patients are generally acknowledged to be a critical source to facilitate medical innovation, there is little empirical evidence on the relation between direct contact with patients and medical innovation. Drawing on organizational psychology and institutional theory research, we propose that contact with bene?ciaries is likely to enhance scientists’ propensity to engage in innovation activities, and that the intensity of this relation is contingent on the institutional setting in which actors are embedded. Our study is based on a large-scale survey of biomedical scientists in Spain. Our ?ndings show an inverted U-shaped relationship between contact with patients and participation in medical innovation. We also observe that the effect of contact with patients varies depending on the institutional logic in which scientists are embedded: our results show that the positive relation between contact with patients and innovation is particularly pronounced for scientists who are embedded in a science logic compared to a care logic. ? 2016 Elsevier B.V. A