Health and wellbeing sector actors embrace collaboration and even competition on-campus

The purpose of this study is to understand how multiple actors from the same business sector perceive operating on a campus setting. The main focus is on the relationships between tenants on-campus, as well as on identifying potential derived from the location on-campus. The study is a qualitative case study of two health and wellbeing campuses in Finland. The cases share some key characteristics, but are in different phases of their life-cycles. The similarities and differences between the two campuses provide fertile ground for comparison. Altogether 19 semi-structured interviews of organisations operating on the two campuses comprise the main source of data.The interviewed actors appreciated the joint resources and facilities provided by the campus. Joint resources were thought to comprise human capability and technology, but also reputation and brand. Specialised health care equipment and facilities are particularly beneficial to share due to their expense and lower utilisation rate. However, also joint restaurant, parking, reception and other facility services were appreciated. Additionally, informal joint areas allowing spontaneous interaction, such as coffee rooms and open hallways were mentioned as a preference. The campus enables providing supplementing services and products for a shared customer segment in a ÒHealth and Wellbeing Shopping CentreÓ type of setting. Interestingly, even competition was tolerated and welcomed by the actors. The reasoning was that, access to a wider offering would be beneficial for potential customers, and therefore the whole campus. The informants considered essential that all actors on-campus share a common vision and goals. A potential threat was identified in the lack of an impartial integrator onsite.The study indicates that tenants benefit from the possibility to operate on a campus designated for a specific business sector from both practical (joint facility services) and strategic (joint vision) perspective. The findings provide interesting insight for both real estate owners and corporate real estate professionals. For the former, the findings may be useful when planning a tenant-mix, or retrofitting facilities. The latter might consider the findings when re-locating and selecting new facilities. It should be noted that, the study is explorative in nature and the findings cannot necessarily be generalised beyond their context. Further studies with cases from outside Finland would be of interest.