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Showing that the contribution of innovation spaces to the development of collaborative innovation projects remains ambiguous for both independent innovation spaces and those run by large organizations, this research proposes to highlight the essential role of boundary spanners to make such projects emerge from innovation spaces.

This research is based on a multicase study of four innovation spaces in French healthcare ecosystems. Distinguishing between independent innovation spaces and innovation spaces run by large organizations, this research provides an in-depth analysis of the emergence of collaborative innovation thanks to the presence of boundary spanners.

Through a qualitative study, this research shows that managers of innovation spaces are the keystone to understanding how new collaborative practices are experimented in innovation spaces. It also shows that boundary spanners can be a team rather than a single individual. They endorse network builder, mediator, and entrepreneur roles and their actions go beyond the innovation spaces boundaries. They mobilize the innovation space dimension to enhance collaborations that are resilient over time and take also place outside innovation space. The boundary spanners’ role exists as much in independent innovation spaces as in innovation spaces managed by large organizations, but in somewhat different ways.

This article clarifies how innovation space support collaborative innovation by explaining the contribution of individuals who act as boundary spanners in this process. The contributions are threefold. First, the managers of the IS endorse the role of boundary spanner, but they do not act alone. Other actors contribute as boundary spanners for the emergence and/or the experimentation of new collaborative practices. Second, they mobilize IS to encourage collaborative projects among people coming from different organizations, but the modalities vary between independent IS and those run by large organization. However, both contribute to the development of new resilient capabilities thanks to the action of boundary spanners. Third, the network-building function of the boundary spanners goes beyond the development of connections within the physical space of the innovation space.

Innovation management in the healthcare sector has undergone significant evolutions over the last decades. These evolutions have been investigated from a variety of perspectives: clusters, ecosystems of innovation, digital ecosystems and regional ecosystems, but the dynamics of networks have seldom been analyzed under the lenses of entrepreneurial ecosystems (EEs). As identified by Cao and Shi (2020), the literature is silent about the organization of resource allocation systems for network orchestration in EEs. This article investigates these elements in the healthcare sector. It discusses the strategic role played by entrepreneurial support organizations (ESOs) in resource allocation and elaborates on the distinction between sponsored and nonsponsored ESOs in EEs. ESOs are active in network orchestration. The literature explains that ESOs lift organizational, institutional and cultural barriers, and support entrepreneurs' access to cognitive and technological resources. However, allocation models are not yet discussed. Therefore, our research questions are as follows: What is the resource allocation model in healthcare-related EEs? What is the role played by sponsored and nonsponsored ESOs as regards resource allocation to support the emergence and development of EEs in the healthcare sector?

The article offers an explanatory, exploratory, and theory-building investigation. The research design offers an abductive research protocol and multi-level analysis of seven (sponsored and nonsponsored) ESOs active in French healthcare ecosystems. Field research elaborates on semi-structured interviews collected between 2016 and 2022.

This article shows explicit complementarities between top-down and bottom-up resource allocation approaches supported by ESOs in the healthcare sector. Despite explicit originalities in each approach, no network orchestration model prevails. Multi-polar coordination is the rule. Entrepreneurs' access to critical technological and cognitive resources is based on resource allocation modalities that differ for sponsored versus nonsponsored ESOs. Emerging from field research, this research also shows that sponsored and nonsponsored ESOs manage their roles in different ways because they confront original issues about organizational legitimacy.

Beyond the results listed above, the main originalities of the paper relate to the instantiation of multi-level analysis operated during field research and to the confrontation between sponsored versus nonsponsored ESOs in the domain of healthcare-related innovation management. This research shows that ESOs have practical relevance because they build original routes for resource allocation and network orchestration in EEs. Each ESO category (sponsored versus nonsponsored) provides original support for resource allocation. The ESO's legitimacy is inferred either from the sponsor or the services delivered to end-users. This research leads to propositions for future research and recommendations for practitioners: ESO managers, entrepreneurs, and policymakers.

Health care ecosystems instantiate different innovation trajectories, driven either by science-/techno-push or user-centric rationales. This article focuses on organization intermediaries (OIs), respectively, active in health care ecosystems driven by science- and techno-push versus user-centric innovation processes; it aims at characterizing their operation and intervention modes. The analysis elaborates on network and content brokerage. Innovation also needs to consider various challenges associated with physical vicinity. The authors check whether territorial anchoring plays a role in brokerage, depending on the innovation model.

The article offers an investigation of eight French organizations matching the definition of OIs and active in different areas of health care-related innovation. It follows a qualitative and abductive research protocol adhering to the precepts of grounded theory.

First, the authors show that content and network brokerage specialize in specific activities in each innovation model. On network brokerage, the authors show that OIs foster the development of communities of practice in the science-/techno-push model, while they nurture communities of innovation in the user-centric model. Services materializing content brokerage are typical consequences of activities performed in each model. The second contribution deals with physical vicinity. In the science-/techno-push model, OIs install a physical space (the “internal” dimension) to support the development of communities of practice, while the “external” dimension copes with agglomeration effects. In the user-centric model, OIs deliver services thanks to the “internal” space; communities of innovation create a leverage effect on the physical space to operate their activities that are supported by “external” network effects.

The originality of the article lies in the description of the alternative roles plaid by organization intermediaries in the science-/techno-push versus user-centric approaches of innovation. In these two approaches, (contents and network) brokerage and physical vicinity play different roles.