Abstract
Recent debates emphasized that both academics and managers are continuously asking to improve studies in an empirical perspective about the practice of open innovation. In this paper, the practice is observed in the FD industry, a sector of activity which is traditionally characterized by a low attitude towards OI, but which is recently opening its innovation processes, as a consequence of the evolution of the competitive context. Our survey, involving companies from three countries (UK, Italy and Spain) is focused on two variables, i.e. partner breadth and partner depth, used to represent the degree of openness. Results show that FD industry can be outlined as a sector under increasing pressures to open. Anyway, beyond the competitive pressures, the individual company strategic reaction turns out crucial: it leads or not to respond to the business challenges and to build managerial and organizational actions to favour the pursued behaviour.