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Through a comprehensive review of the literature on open innovation (OI), this study aimed to achieve two objectives: (1) to identify the main thematic areas discussed in the past and track their evolution over time; and (2) to provide recommendations for future research avenues.

To achieve the first objective, a method based on text mining was implemented, with the analysis focusing on 1,772 journal articles published between 2003 and 2018. For the second objective, a review based on recent and relevant papers was conducted for each thematic area.

The paper identified nine thematic areas explored in existing research: (1) context-dependency of OI, (2) collaborative frameworks, (3) organizational dimensions of OI, (4) performance and OI, (5) external search for OI, (6) OI in small and medium-sized enterprises, (7) OI in the pharmaceutical industry, (8) OI and intellectual property rights, and (9) technology. The analysis of the most recent papers belonging to the more investigated areas offers suitable suggestions for future research avenues.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, no review has yet been undertaken to reorganize the OI literature.

The aim of this paper is to explore whether open innovation is emerging in the Italian fashion industry.

Based on available studies on innovation and open innovation, we first identified the main facets of open innovation within the industry investigated, such as the process of searching for new ideas, the involvement of external partners in the new product development process and the use of collaboration mechanisms between supply chain partners. Starting from these findings, the authors designed a semi-structured questionnaire that was used as a guideline for 15 case studies, carried out in the Italian fashion industry.

The outcomes from the case studies allow drawing some conclusions about the emergency of open innovation in the fashion industry and the related patterns.

Given its exploratory nature, this study is expected to start a debate about open innovation in the fashion industry, as well as to encourage future studies in this field.

Following the Agenda 2030 for Sustainable Development, the main challenge for the agrofood sector is to innovate food production, offering sustainable, smart and safe solutions. The future of food production will be oriented more and more towards sustainable industries with high technological content to guarantee food safety and food security. It implies that a change not only in the way food is conceived, but also in the way it is produced, processed and consumed is needed. The aim of the present study is to investigate the role of innovation, sustainability, smartness and health within the agrofood industry.

A literature review was conducted using 596 academic documents written in English language and published in peer-reviewed scientific journals as well as in conference proceedings. The relevant articles were analyzed using both a bibliometric and a systematic approach.

The results confirm the role of innovation and sustainability as key drivers in the food industry. The main findings concern the benefits deriving from the adoption of digital technologies, the ever-increasing involvement of consumers in health and environmental issues and the introduction of the open innovation concept in the agrofood industry.

This study jointly considers the dimensions of innovation, sustainability, smartness and health in the agrofood sector, demonstrating how they are strongly interdependent.

The purpose of this paper is threefold: first, to identify the unique characteristics of family firms in terms of the ability to manage and the willingness to engage in collaborative innovation; second, to investigate the existence of contingent factors affecting the heterogeneity of family firms’ behavior regarding these dimensions; and third, to propose a future research agenda.

This study consists of a systematic literature review.

Based on the results of a systematic review, the authors explain why family firms have a different behavior in terms of collaborative innovation if compared to the non-family counterparts and, following the contingent-based perspective, the authors also explain how different contingent factors can contribute to cause the heterogeneity of family firms’ behavior when facing collaborative innovation. Finally, the authors present a research agenda aimed at stimulating and guiding future research.

The main limitation of the review is the wide definition of collaborative innovation provided at the beginning of the manuscript, in the introduction. In fact, with the aim of including all the studies dealing with collaborative innovation in the family firms’ context, the authors adopt a broad definition of external collaborative innovation that encompasses each process by which organizations work together to achieve an innovation outcome.

To the knowledge, this is the first systematic review addressing this relevant topic and proposing a future research agenda. The authors believe it could represent an important guide (but also a stimulus) for scholars interesting in the topic.

Starting from the model of the initiation and evolution of inter-firm knowledge transfer in R&D relationships developed by Faems et al. (2007), the purpose of this paper is to refine and improve this model, assessing its reliability in a different and wider context and extending it according to the outcomes.

A multiple case-study approach was implemented, examining 34 dyadic inter-firm R&D relationships. This methodology suited the research goal of exploring the validity of a model in an area where little data or theory exists.

The theoretical model proposed by Faems et al. (2007) was improved, confirming the adequacy of the overall structure of their intuition and highlighting several differences in terms of factors that lead to the dissolution of R&D relationships. These differences mainly refer to partners’ similarities before starting R&D relationships, co-opetition situations, knowledge leakage/opportunistic behavior and reputation issues.

This work is the first to investigate two open research gaps related to the model of the initiation and evolution of inter-firm knowledge transfer in R&D relationships: the need for additional case studies in other contexts to develop a more general theory and the lack of research incorporating issues such as relational capital between partners, governance form and alliance scope in an integrated analysis.

According to the paradigm of the Triple Helix, universities are moving from their traditional roles of research, teaching and knowledge dissemination to an entrepreneurial role. Specifically, they contribute to innovation and competitiveness by creating academic spin-offs (ASOs). In such a context, the diffusion of digital technologies is impacting both on the development of new forms of academic entrepreneurship and on the motivations of academics in launching ASOs. Grounded on a recent reconceptualization developed on identity theory, this study investigates the motivations that lead an academic to establish a spin-off and if, how and why these motivations vary over time.

An extensive online survey was performed in order to obtain a final database of 151 Italian ASOs. Different statistical techniques were used, such as Cluster analysis and ANOVA, to identify different ASO profiles and to understand how and why these profiles change over time.

The results suggest that motivations change over time: while financial aspects become less important, academics give more importance to other issues. Time, experience and financial gain influence the evolution of academic entrepreneurs' motivations over time.

Insights derived from the study could help policy-makers and administrators in better understanding this phenomenon and the possible evolution of such academic motivations in the context of digitalization, and enable them to act accordingly to foster academic entrepreneurship.

The main contributions of the present study are the addition of empirical knowledge to the scant and anecdotal literature existing to date and the inclusion of cognitive and psychological theoretical perspectives in the academic entrepreneurship debate. Moreover, it is believed that no other study has investigated the above topics in the Italian context.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the green innovation literature using a conceptual framework developed to explain the driving forces behind environmental cooperative activities of firms. The framework links motivations to the different type of partners in the context of environmental innovations.

Literature on innovation, environmental innovation, sustainable development and strategic management is examined in order to build the conceptual framework.

This paper suggests that firms cooperate with governmental agencies, NGOs, suppliers, customers and industry associations to comply with environmental laws and regulation, obtain legitimacy as well as acquire competency (i.e. access to resources such as funds, knowledge and skills). However, only competency‐oriented motivation stimulates organisations to cooperate with competitors and knowledge leaders.

The model developed is conceptual and qualitative in nature. More research that is empirical needs to be conducted to test for the validity of the six formulated propositions.

The significance of this paper is twofold. First, it integrates two different strategic management theories: resource‐based and institutional theories in explaining cooperative environmental motivations. Second, it develops a framework that provides a basis for more theoretical and empirical studies.

The aim of this paper is twofold: to understand if it is possible to find similarities and dissimilarities among the construction companies in terms of knowledge management (KM) process, identifying the main tools and techniques adopted by the same companies within this process; second, to emphasize and study more in depth the best KM techniques that emerged from the cases in the context of the Italian construction industry.

On the basis of available studies on KM within the industry investigated, multiple case studies were developed to reach the aforementioned objective, involving 14 Italian construction companies.

The outcomes obtained from the case studies allow drawing some conclusions on the KM process adopted by the companies investigated, as well as on the type of tools and techniques adopted by the same companies in the KM process.

The case study is based on 14 single cases and, therefore, we must keep in mind that there may be significant differences between industries, companies, departments and individuals regarding how management tools and technological systems are used in practice.

Very few papers are available on the KM process within the Italian construction landscape. This study is expected to encourage future studies in this field.

The objective of the paper is twofold: first, to test a framework of the relationship between satisfaction of knowledge workers and organizational culture, developed in a previous theoretical study, within a specific industry, specifically, the pharmaceutical one; second, to investigate which of the constructs that constitute such a framework are the most important in the above mentioned industry.

In order to achieve the above mentioned objectives, the authors adopted multiple case study based research. The case studies were carried out with a series of semi‐structured interviews, with all the knowledge workers operating in the R&D business functions of each company, over a two‐month period during May and June 2009.

The main result of the research is the validation of the research framework by knowledge workers operating in the pharmaceutical industry. It emerged that a bureaucratic organizational culture has a negative influence on knowledge workers' job satisfaction, while innovative or supportive organizational culture have a positive impact. Moreover, the study makes it possible to understand which aspects of their job satisfaction are more influenced by the organizational culture.

Results indicate to managers the essential features of an organizational culture that positively influence job satisfaction, and in particular to introduce in the industries (like the pharmaceutical one) where R&D is the key activity, carrier ladders and forms of participation for the knowledge workers. Moreover, they help managers in detecting the things to be improved in the organization in order to improve the job satisfaction of their knowledge workers.

Since only few studies have investigated the link between the organizational culture on knowledge workers' satisfaction, in general and within a specific industry in particular, the paper adds elements of discussion to the debate about the evaluation of the impact of organizational culture on job satisfaction of knowledge workers.