Understanding key stakeholders and value drivers in relation to new technology adoption: The percutaneous evolution of Mitral Valve Medical Devices

Abstract

Technology adoption in a rapidly developing market can be a challenging feat. Being able to identify and integrate stakeholder-perceived value into a product offering is a vital step to achieving ultimate market success. Stakeholder marketing is important to ensure that value co-creation is present within the stakeholder-company relationship. Emerging literature highlights the importance of collaborating with the stakeholder network during product development processes and R&D. Collaboration ensures that new products are embedded with stakeholder-determined value. Theory around value is unclear - there has been little consensus surrounding the conceptualisation of value. This research aims to contribute to the literature involving value perception and value drivers, specifically understanding how value is perceived by stakeholders and what types of value drivers are generated. An explorative case-study was conducted, where an industry with rapid innovation was used as the empirical context – the medical device industry. The technology in question was the mitral valve medical device, a device which is currently undergoing an interesting product transition due to a market drive towards percutaneous forms of treatment. Cardiologists were identified as key stakeholders within the network and were interviewed in order to determine drivers of value in relation to mitral valve device market adoption. Collected data was analysed using the Gioia method, to extract 1st-order terms, 2nd-order themes, and form aggregate dimensions. Three aggregate dimensions were extracted from the qualitative data: device innovations, device evidence and stakeholder network influences. These dimensions could be broken down further into four different categories of value drivers, and additionally contributed to an understanding of stakeholder network influences on device adoption. This study contributes to the literature surrounding value perception, drivers, and stakeholder network marketing. It signals the importance of understanding the complex stakeholder network involved in adoption due to identified interrelatedness and uniqueness of stakeholder groups. The study also highlighted a number of different opportunities that a medical device company could pursue (i.e. device innovations) in order to meet needs in the market that are currently unmet.