Private healthcare entrepreneurship in a free-access public health system: what was the impact of COVID-19 public policies in Greece?

Nikolaos Apostolopoulos, Panagiotis Liargovas, Pantelis Sklias, Ilias Makris and Sotiris Apostolopoulos

Journal of Entrepreneurship and Public Policy, 2022, vol. 11, issue 1, 23-39

Abstract: Purpose - This paper aims to examine whether private healthcare entrepreneurship can flourish and overcome obstacles in cases of a free-access public health system and periods of strict public policies, such as the COVID-19 pandemic. Moreover, the paper aims to illuminate the wider social role of private healthcare entrepreneurship during the COVID-19 pandemic. Design/methodology/approach - This paper adopts a qualitative methodological strategy through 12 in-depth semi-structured interviews with the owners of diagnostic centres located in small Greek towns. Findings - Private healthcare entrepreneurship flourished and played a significantly positive social role in the context of a degraded public health sector, which lacked investments for more than ten years and was further depleted by its recent focus on COVID-19 incidents. This paper reveals that although public policies that aimed to deal with COVID-19 produced serious consequences, business activity adapted to the new circumstances. Research limitations/implications - Future research can combine the findings of this paper with the views of stakeholders, policymakers and social actors. Originality/value - This paper's value lies in its efforts to expand our current knowledge regarding the impact of COVID-19 public policies on entrepreneurship.

Keywords: Diagnostic centres; Public policies; Social goals; Healthcare entrepreneurship; COVID-19 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.110 ... d&utm_campaign=repec (text/html)
https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.110 ... d&utm_campaign=repec (application/pdf)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eme:jepppp:jepp-03-2021-0029

DOI: 10.1108/JEPP-03-2021-0029

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Journal of Entrepreneurship and Public Policy from Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Emerald Support ().