Innovation strategy and digital transformation execution in healthcare: The role of the general manager

This study investigates if and how the definition of an 'innovation strategy' affects the execution of digital transformation initiatives within healthcare organisations, managing institutional pressures, and accounting for contingent factors. If and how the pandemic altered the way top managers in healthcare make sense of these challenges are key considerations addressed herein. After discussing our conceptual background based on institutional theory, integrative thinking, and sense-making, we introduce a qualitative survey combining Gioia method and phenomenography. The main source of data is in-depth interviews with 15 general managers, each leading a medium-to-large healthcare organisation in northern Italy. The healthcare environment is expected to generate institutional forces leading to isomorphic patterns of innovation, i.e., very similar to each other. By contrast, our contribution reveals significant variation in innovation strategies. Furthermore, we showed digital transformation is playing a central role in sustaining innovation pushed by the pandemic, making these healthcare organisations more antifragile.