Transition and innovation ecosystem – investigating technologies, focal actors, and institution in eHealth innovations

• A theoretical framework and methods to investigate the transition by patent citation network analysis. • Assessment of the proposed framework by the core characteristics of transition. • Providing the two perspectives, technological trajectory and focal actor, to investigate standard record. • Focal actors and their standardization behaviour are the main body to drive the transition. • Adoption of advanced machine learning method, automated patent landscaping, to identify eHealth patents. It has been challenging to investigate transition in a quantitative way. The challenge includes the complex interconnectedness relations in actors, artefacts and institutions and the lack of comprehensive datasets. However, after seeking the intrinsic properties of the social-technical system and innovation ecosystem theories, we propose a framework to investigate the transition in refinement and adjustment via realizing the patent citation network analysis. Then, we pick up the eHealth innovations as the investigation topic. The investigated elements include technology, actor and institution (standard). As a result, our analytical results reflect major historical events and results of prior studies, e.g., standard records. Next, we find that the observation of interconnectedness in technology and institution is accessible by the focal actors, especially the bridge role in the network. Then, we further confirm that the focal actors and their standardization behaviours are the main body to shape the transition activities. Thirdly, to observe the transition process, we assess the proposed framework by the core characteristics of the transition. Last, we differentiate two perspectives, technological trajectory and focal actor, on the standard investigation, which paves another way to investigate standards in innovation studies. The limitation is also described in the last section.