Open innovation profiles in Italian manufacturing companies

In recent years, researchers have investigated the new paradigm of open innovation(OI), analyzing various aspects, such as the determinants, changes in the innovation process, impact on performance, and barriers to the development of this approach. Nevertheless, the vast majority of empirical analyses have been focused on Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs). The chapter's objective is to identify and characterize different profiles of openness towards the external environment, and it has been conducted on Italian manufacturing firms, a context which is highly characterized by SMEs. A survey was carried out and a database of 96 manufacturing companies was obtained. A K-means cluster analysis and a univariate analysis of variance (ANOVA) were conducted to identify different profiles of OI and verify the significance levels of differences between clusters. Initial results suggest that two clusters with different levels of openness can be found, in which group membership is significantly influenced by open innovation, employees' innovation capability, collaborative management practices, aggressive technology strategy, ICT adoption, employee development, and by context variables such as company size and performance.