Marija Sarafinovska, the Department’s Newest Ph.D. Graduate

Marija Sarafinovska, the Department’s Newest Ph.D. Graduate

It is with great pleasure that we can announce that Marija Sarafinovska has just graduated with a Ph.D. degree from Copenhagen Business School.

Marija’s Ph.D. thesis consists of an introduction and three independent chapters collectively aiming to answer the question: “Patients as Innovators: An Empirical Study of Patients’ Role in Innovation in the Healthcare Industry.” First, she empirically investigates the ethical challenges occurring during the co-creation process within the healthcare industry through semi-structured interviews with patients and managers. Then, she explores factors influencing patients’ intention to innovate through a survey instrument. She develops and tests a model to study: socially conscious consumer behavior, being ahead of trend, and burden of treatment as potential factors that could impact patients’ intention to innovate. As important patient innovativeness is, sharing those innovations is crucial. Henceforth, she finally investigates the impact of innovation-related resources (technical expertise and community-based resources) on patient innovators’ willingness to share.

A huge congratulation to Marija for completing her Ph.D. thesis—and big thanks to her supervisors: associate professor Kristjan Jespersen, professor (mso) Richard Gyrd-Jones, and professor Stefan Markovic. Also thanks to the assessment committee: professors Ad de Jong, James Barlow, and Katja Hutter.