From principles to practice: user inclusion in responsible innovation for digital healthcare

This paper explores how Responsible Innovation (RI) is enacted at the firm level in the digital healthcare sector, with a focus on user inclusion. While RI has gained traction, its practical implementation within firms remains under-theorised. Drawing on a relational approach, this study examines how sociomaterial and spatiotemporal dynamics shape user inclusion in an early-stage digital health startup. Through a longitudinal qualitative field study, we identify key barriers and enablers of inclusion, including material agency and implicit social norms. Our findings extend RI frameworks by showing that inclusion is not merely procedural or normative, but a situated practice shaped by interactions between human and non-human actors. This study contributes to both RI theory and organisational practice by offering a grounded understanding of how user inclusion unfolds in real-world innovation contexts.