Open innovation practices for knowledge acquisition and their effects on innovation output

The paper aims at analysing the relationships between technological strategies, open innovation adoption and type of innovation output obtained after the knowledge-based perspective. Six hypotheses are generated and tested on 243 companies in R&D intense industries. A patent-based framework is designed for defining the variables under investigation and regression analysis is performed. Open innovation is mostly adopted to pursue exploration and diversification and mainly leads to modular and radical innovation. Incremental innovation is mostly attained through R&D outsourcing, joint development leads to architectural innovation, whereas both the acquisition and the incorporation of external technologies pertain the access to modular and radical innovation. The work suggests scholars to address their interests not only on the open innovation adoption but also on the differences among the various practices that may be employed in opposition to the internal development.