Identifying capabilities in innovation projects: Evidences from eHealth

Many eHealth innovation projects have emerged in the last few years, but most of them remain in a permanent pilot state, which is a growing concern in the management literature. The purpose of this study is to improve the understanding of the organizational capabilities that eHealth innovation projects require after the pilot state. The analysis follows an inductive theory-building process comprising two qualitative studies. The first study derives propositions relating organizational capabilities to the implementation of eHealth projects from interviews with five experts in the area. Four capabilities emerge from the interviews: evaluation, collaborative leadership, stakeholder networking, and organizational flexibility. A second study validates the propositions analyzing seven eHealth projects that have reached implementation. This research also provides insight for managers of eHealth projects on how to define strategies to take their projects from pilot to real implementations, avoiding the so-called “plague of pilots.”