Page 1 International Journal of Business and Applied Social Science (IJBASS) DOI: 10.33642/ijbass.v5n4p1 VOL: 5, ISSUE: 4 April/2019 https://ijbassnet.com/ E-ISSN: 2469-6501 ©Center for Promoting Education and Research (CPER) USA www.cpernet.org Calling All Life Science Entrepreneurs Managing Stakeholders: A Change Primer Robert Spencer Principal Change Consulting Associates E-mail: r.spencer@comcast.net USA Keywords: Adoption, Behaviour’s, Change Management, Entrepreneurial Change, Life Science Early Stage, Lifecycle, Sponsorship, Stakeholder Management. Introduction Entrepreneurs in life sciences, however technically proficient they may be, face unique stakeholder change challenges. No matter how important their invention, new ways of working mean changes in old ways that usually face major headwinds. To start, whatever the innovation there can be life or death consequences, and this gives decision making a conservative bias. There also tends to be a wide range of stakeholder interests to manage and that can create cash flow problems if not managed in a timely manner. Finally, stakeholders who are engaged in the entrepreneur’s early stage of work require close support and encouragement to make sure that initial experiences are positive. All of these are demanding tasks that the ablest inventor may struggle to manage successfully. This paper addresses these challenges by reviewing a number of models and techniques life science (and other) entrepreneurs can use to be more efficient and successful in introducing their changes. When Is This Important? Change is a contact sport which is to say that entrepreneurs need to be not just inventive but also able to interact with a diverse range of stakeholders to gain support for their innovations. Figure 1 (Porter, 2012) describes activities entrepreneurs need to engage in when both proving their ideas and later, if they stay with their start-up, as they grow and evolve their business organizations. The change principles and techniques reviewed in this paper are focused on the proving your idea change zone to help entrepreneurs approach their engagement of stakeholders more purposely, with improved insight and greater efficiency. Further, investors, coaches and advocates are likely to find this information useful in their efforts to support the entrepreneur. And all will find this information useful in achieving business case results and eventually growing the business as well, though the latter is not explicitly addressed here. ABSTRACT Entrepreneurs, especially in the life sciences, often introduce disruptive changes but in ecosystems with no or poor sponsorship. While they often focus on the desirability of their innovations, they really need to approach socializing their work as a change management effort. This paper notes change concepts and models that can be used by life science (and other) entrepreneurs to more efficiently and effectively introduce their innovations to key stakeholders.