Expectations and Needs of Estonian Health Sector SMEs from Living Labs in an International Context

Katri-Liis Lepik and Merle Krigul
Additional contact information
Katri-Liis Lepik: School of Governance, Law and Society, Tallinn University, Tallinn 10120, Estonia
Merle Krigul: School of Governance, Law and Society, Tallinn University, Tallinn 10120, Estonia

Sustainability, 2021, vol. 13, issue 5, 1-13

Abstract: Living labs bring experimentation out of otherwise closed R&D departments to real-life environments with the participation of users and stakeholders. Living labs have been established in all the Baltic Sea countries. They operate in many sectors, but the way services are structured varies widely. This study is focusing on the limited options of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) from Baltic Sea states to test and validate their products and services both in local as well as international contexts, and resulting limited access to foreign markets. This study comprises a qualitative content analysis of interviews with SMEs to identify the internationalization potential of living labs. In particular, the authors have analyzed the needs, expectations and obstacles of SMEs in the healthcare sector in Estonia. The authors found that testing and validation activities in living labs would be beneficial mostly for SMEs ready for entering international markets. Other services offered by living labs could be of interest to SMEs considering entering new international markets but have not achieved validation.

Keywords: living labs; open innovation; user involvement; health services; sustainability (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/5/2887/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/5/2887/ (text/html)

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:gam:jsusta:v:13:y:2021:i:5:p:2887-:d:512312

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().