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1. Introduction
The development of internal capabilities and routines and the focus only on internal research and development (R&D) are no longer sufficient to cope with technological evolution and development costs. These drivers have changed all the organizations, favoring a shift from a monolithic structure of an internal vertically integrated and closed R&D to an open R&D structure by tapping into the external sources of knowledge through alliances and technology agreements (Berchicci, 2013; West and Bogers, 2014; Ardito et al., 2015). Instead of closed innovation, one of the most recent models suggests an open innovation paradigm, where the R&D structure should be seen as an open system (Chesbrough, 2006; Bellantuono et al., 2013). This paradigm assumes that the management of purposive outflows and inflows of knowledge speed up internal innovation processes (Chesbrough and Bogers, 2014). Following this paradigm, firms stimulate internal creativity and innovation by scanning and tapping external sources of knowledge. The phenomenon of looking for knowledge outside the organizational boundaries has received a lot of attention in the literature, as a consequence of the increasing number of R&D partnerships (Capaldo and Petruzzelli, 2014; Messeni Petruzzelli and Rotolo, 2015). In fact, to compete in turbulent business environments, firms are increasingly tapping into external source of knowledge through the opening of their organizational boundaries (Berchicci, 2013; Garavelli et al., 2013; Santoro et al., 2016).
However, firms differ in approaching open innovation with different search modes (Dahlander and Gann, 2010; Ardito et al., 2016a) and in exploiting external knowledge in different ways (Savino et al., 2017). Both theoretical arguments and empirical research suggest that opening up a firm’s R&D system is beneficial for the innovative performance but only up to a point. In fact, if firms rely heavily on external sources of knowledge, then the search, coordinating and monitoring costs increase and, at the same time, it could lead to the creation of path-dependent knowledge stocks within the firm (Darroch and McNaughton, 2002). In this context, knowledge is the starting point for the development of innovations and can be generated either externally or internally, but firms should develop internal capabilities and practical tools and systems to manage and integrate the different sources of dispersed knowledge (Ardito et al., 2015;...