Research areas
Managing and organizing innovation, learning and knowledge in and across organizations. Studies of the food industry (agri- and aquaculture), and of healthcare technologies and practices. Particularly interested in how organizational and market practices and processes tend to be shaped through a complex interplay of human, technological, economic and cultural elements.
Organization studies, innovation studies, science and technology studies, practice based studies of organizations and markets, industrial networks, organizational learning.
Teaching areas
Various courses related to organization, innovation management, entrepreneurship, and strategy.
Purpose – The demand for healthcare innovation is increasing, and not much is known about how entrepreneurial firms search for and sell to customers in the highly regulated and complex healthcare market. Drawing on effectuation perspectives, we explore how entrepreneurial digital healthcare firms with disruptive innovations search for early customers in the healthcare sector. Study design/methodology/approach – This study uses a qualitative, longitudinal multiple-case design of four entrepreneurial Nordic telehealth firms. In-depth interviews were conducted with founders and senior managers over a period of 27 months. Findings – We find that when customer buying conditions are highly flexible, case firms use effectual logic to generate customer demand for disruptive innovations. However, under constrained buying conditions firms adopt a more causal approach to customer search. Originality/value: We contribute to effectuation literature by illustrating how customer buying conditions influence decision-making logics of entrepreneurial firms searching for customers in the healthcare sector. We contribute to entrepreneurial resource search literature by illustrating how entrepreneurial firms search for customers beyond their networks in the institutionally complex healthcare sector. Practical implications – Managers need to gain a deep understanding of target buying environments when searching for customers. In healthcare sector markets, the degree of flexibility customers have over buying can constrain them from engaging in demand co-creation. In particular, healthcare customer access to funding streams can be a key determinant of customer flexibility.
In the past three decades, there has been an increasing interest in transitions as crucial analytical moments of socio-technical change, with infrastructures being strategic loci from where to leverage these transformations. In this article, we argue for the necessity to re-engage with not-in-transition periods, which have theoretically and analytically been oversimplified. By focusing on the socio-technical practices of repair across interconnected infrastructures under not-in-transition conditions, we provide a better understanding of how these periods are (re)produced. Our in-depth case study of the Norwegian offshore oil and gas (O&G) drilling industry shows how stability can be ensured by means of inter-infrastructural governance carried on by specific power constellations, i.e. action nodes. The way they mould infrastructural components is revealed when normal operations are endangered by adverse events, such as accidents or economic crises.
Christie, Werner H; Hoholm, Thomas & Mørk, Bjørn Erik (2018)
Innovasjon og samhandling i helsevesenet En praksisbasert tilnærming
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the mediating role of boundary objects in interaction processes within business networks. From a single case study in the grocery retail industry, we find that such objects are used within interaction processes for collaboration, but are also used extensively for handling conflict, facilitating economic negotiations, and power execution. As such, network-level boundary objects do not require broad consensus by all the involved actors, but instead narrow consensus in a particular interaction process.
Hoholm, Thomas; Strønen, Fred H., Kvaerner, Kari Jorunn & Støme, Linn Nathalie (2018)
Developing Organizational Amidexterity: Enabling Service Innovation in a Hospital Setting
Hoholm, Thomas; La Rocca, Antonella & Aanestad, Margunn (red.). Controversies in Healthcare Innovation. Service, Technology and Organization
In Chapter 13, Hoholm et al. discuss controversies in the healthcare sector by studying the nature of innovation projects at the Clinic of Innovation at Oslo University Hospital and its efforts to improve organizational ambidexterity in the area of service innovation. This includes more room for exploration, and improving their capacity to translate and exploit service innovations in use. Using the notions of ‘exploration’ and ‘exploitation’ (March, Organization Science 2:71–87,1991) the authors show how successful innovation requires two different organizational capacities and discuss how a complex knowledge organization like a hospital may increase its ability to handle both, often referred to as ‘organizational ambidexterity’ (Junni et al., The Academy of Management Perspectives 27:299–312, 2013). The authors propose three conditions for driving ambidexterity: organizational responsibilities and roles, provisional evaluation methods, and systematic cross-case learning.
Araujo, Luis; La Rocca, Antonella & Hoholm, Thomas (2018)
Reconfiguring the relation between primary and secondary healthcare through policy instruments
Hoholm, Thomas; La Rocca, Antonella & Aanestad, Margunn (red.). Controversies in Healthcare Innovation. Service, Technology and Organization
Hoholm, Thomas; La Rocca, Antonella & Aanestad, Margunn (2018)
Controversies in Healthcare Innovation. Service, Technology and Organization
Palgrave Macmillan.
Hoholm, Thomas & Araujo, Luis (2017)
Innovation policy in an interacted world: The critical role of the context
Håkansson, Håkan & Snehota, Ivan (red.). No Business is an Island: Making Sense of the Interactive Business World
Strønen, Fred H.; Hoholm, Thomas, Kvaerner, Kari Jorunn & Støme, Linn Nathalie (2017)
Dynamic Capabilities and Innovation Capabilities: The Case of the ‘Innovation Clinic’
Background In Norway, a government reform has recently been introduced to enhance coordination between primary and secondary care. This paper examines the effects of two newly introduced measures to improve the coordination: an ICT-based communication tool/standard and an economic incentive scheme. Method This qualitative study is based primarily on 27 open-ended interviews. We interviewed nine employees at a hospital (the focal actor), 17 employees from seven different municipalities, and a representative of a Regional Health Authority. Results ICT-based communication is perceived to facilitate information exchange between primary and secondary care, thus positively affecting coordination. However, the economic incentive scheme appears to have the opposite effect by creating tensions between the two organizations and accentuating power asymmetry in favor of secondary care. Conclusions The inter-organizational nature of coordination in health care makes it crucial for policymakers and management of care organizations to conceive incentives and instruments that work jointly across organizations rather than at only one of the health care organizations involved. Such an approach is likely to favor a more symmetrical pattern of collaboration between primary and secondary care.
La Rocca, Antonella; Öberg, Christina & Hoholm, Thomas (2017)
When start-ups shift network – notes on start up journey
Aaboen, Lise; La Rocca, Antonella, Lind, Frida, Perna, Andrea & Shih, Tommy (red.). Starting Up in Business Networks Why Relationships Matter in Entrepreneurship
La Rocca, Antonella; Hoholm, Thomas & Mørk, Bjørn Erik (2017)
Practice theory and the study of interaction in business relationships: Some methodological implications
From breakthroughs in knowledge to integration in medical practices
Škerlavaj, Miha; Černe, Matej, Dysvik, Anders & Carlsen, Arne (red.). Capitalizing on creativity at work: Fostering the implementation of creative ideas in organizations
La Rocca, Antonella; Hvidsten, Adeline & Hoholm, Thomas (2016)
Making innovations work locally: the role of creativity
Škerlavaj, Miha; Černe, Matej, Dysvik, Anders & Carlsen, Arne (red.). Capitalizing on creativity at work: Fostering the implementation of creative ideas in organizations
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the dynamics of networked power in a concentrated business network. Power is a long standing theme in inter-organizational research, yet there is a paucity of studies about how power emerges and is constructed over time at the network level. The paper adopts process, systems and network theory to interpret a rich single case study from the food industry. Three power mechanisms are identified, gatekeeping, decoupling and resource allocation, which form the basis of a model of networked power dynamics. Empirically tracing the dynamics of networked power highlights the economic contents of interactions. The paper extends current understandings of power as ‘conflict and coercion’ to include influencing, leveraging and strategic maneuvering in the actual performance of networked power.
Mørk, Bjørn Erik; Aanestad, Margunn & Hoholm, Thomas (2013)
Tverrfaglig samhandling: En praksisbasert studie av utvikling og implementering av nye praksiser i sykehus
Tjora, Aksel Hagen & Melby, Line (red.). Samhandling for helse: Kunnskap, kommunikasjon og teknologi i helsetjenesten
Hoholm, Thomas & Håkansson, Håkan (2012)
Interaction to bridge network gaps. The problem opf specialization and innovation in fish technology
The IMP Journal, 6(3), s. 254- 266.
Hoholm, Thomas & Olsen, Per Ingvar (2012)
The contrary forces of innovation: A conceptual model for studying networked innovation processes