Coronavirus crisis and health care: learning from a service ecosystem perspective

Purpose: The COVID-19 pandemic has created a crisis for healthcare systems worldwide. There have been significant challenges to managing public and private health care and related services systems’ capacity to cope with testing, treatment and containment of the virus. Drawing on the foundational research by Frow et al. (2019), the paper explores how adopting a service ecosystem perspective provides insight into the complexity of healthcare systems during times of extreme stress and uncertainty. Design/methodology/approach: A healthcare framework based on a review of the service ecosystem literature is developed, and the COVID-19 crisis in Australia provides an illustrative case. Findings: The study demonstrates how the service ecosystem perspective provides new insight into the dynamics and multilayered nature of a healthcare system during a pandemic. Three propositions are developed that offer directions for future research and managerial applications. Practical implications: The research provides an understanding of the relevance of managerial flexibility, innovation, learning and knowledge sharing, which offers opportunities leading to greater resilience in the healthcare system. In particular, the research addresses how service providers in the service ecosystem learn from this pandemic to inform future practices. Originality/value: The service ecosystem perspective for health care offers fresh thinking and an understanding of how a shared worldview, institutional practices and supportive and disruptive factors influence the systems’ overall well-being during a crisis such as COVID-19.