THE IMPACT OF SOCIALLY CONSCIOUS BEHAVIOR ON PATIENTS’ INTENTION TO INNOVATE: THE MODERATING ROLES OF PATIENTS’ BURDEN OF TREATMENT AND (BEING) AHEAD OF TREND

Recent research has revealed that patients and their caregivers, as end users of healthcare products and services, are not only drivers of institutional research, but also inventors of a multitude of valuable solutions to improve their own and their close community’s medical conditions. The emergence of innovation intermediaries in healthcare and initiatives to share patients’ solutions confirm that there is an increased awareness of the importance of patient innovation. However, there is still a dearth of quantitative research investigating patient innovation. In involving themselves in the innovation process, patients are trying to solve problems for themselves or their immediate environment (relatives, friends, or their community). This implies that one of their strongest incentives to innovate is the presence of community norms (that helping others in the community is what should be done), which is reflective of social processes and not of commercial benefits. Therefore, in the present study, we investigate the influence of patients’ social consciousness on their intention to innovate. We also study the moderating effect of their lead userness (being ahead of trend) and the burden of their treatment on the relationship between socially conscious behavior and intention to innovate. We conducted the research by surveying over 300 chronic disease patients through various patient organizations and online communities. The findings confirm the significant and positive impact of socially conscious behavior on patients’ intention to innovate. Furthermore, if patients are ahead of trend, this tends to strengthen the positive relationship between their socially conscious behavior and their intention to innovate. Although we failed to prove that the treatment burden moderates the relationship between socially conscious behavior and intention to innovate, this study is the first to consider the burden of treatment as a measure of patients’ disease-related needs. It therefore paves the way for future research on the burden of treatment as a factor influencing innovation. Overall, we believe that this study enriches user innovation theory with a better understanding and predictability of the process, thereby making a significant contribution to the literature on patient innovation.