Stakeholders in the healthcare service ecosystem

Abstract Healthcare services and management plays an essential role in human society. Nevertheless, there is little attention to the issues of healthcare services, concerning multiple stakeholders involved, complicated relationships, and high management difficulty. This paper aims to explore the approach to optimize management of stakeholders, from the perspective of the service ecosystem. Based on the construction of stakeholders’ map in the healthcare service ecosystem, potential stakeholders are identified preliminarily. Moreover, drawing on Mitchell score-based approach, the stakeholders are classified. Eventually, with the distinguishing of leading, core and supporting populations based upon the classification results, the healthcare service ecosphere in the Chinese context is developed. This research provides a research framework for the positioning of stakeholder, formulation of management strategies and formation of interest balance mechanism in the healthcare service ecosystem. In addition, it also provides theoretical support and practical guidance for the optimization of healthcare services.