Abstract
Although there is an increased interest in studies on FFs and open innovation (OI) the existing knowledge is rather limited. This study explores the open innovation choices and the relative innovation performance in FFs with respect to non-family firms, by means of an European survey involving Italian, Swedish, Finnish and UK companies. We rely on concepts and constructs already defined by open innovation literature and we explore the behavior of FFs and non-family firms. Analysis of differences show that family firms are in general less open than nonfamily firms, when we consider openness in terms of breadth, while they show a higher intensity of collaboration behavior when we consider the measures of depth. Regressions show that, beside the external social capital, organizationalmanagerial factor is for FFs a relevant mediator on the relationships between OI depth and innovation performance.