Valentina Elena Lazzarotti

The interest about Research spin-offs (RSOs) has constantly increased since the last fifteen years on average, as their number is augmenting all over Europe and, consequently, several academic debates about the effective success, convincing strategy, and real performance of this peculiar kind of start-up company are open and arouse tricky questions. In addition, following the Internet revolution and globalization, nowadays we are assisting to the rising of high-growth firms, gazelles, “unicorns” and other kinds of companies that go beyond the traditional (old) vision of doing business. Moreover, open innovation, lean start-up and design thinking are at present some representative emerging strategies for doing business. Notwithstanding, in this fast-changing scenario and despite the growing relevance for companies of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) and digital technologies, the role and the features of RSOs specifically providing digital products/services are still unexplored. In this paper, we leverage on a multiple case study analysis of four Italian digital RSOs to highlight differences and similarities with non-digital RSOs, their peculiarities in terms of drivers that foster their creation (as the role of the universities or the location issues), or, in terms of potential value creation, the successful competitive strategies that digital RSOs pursue.

During the last decade, many researchers have claimed that we are in the era of open innovation (OI). However, an extensive picture of the actual implementation of open innovation is still lacking. In order to address this gap, a research project was launched, called Open Innovation Survey, involving four European countries (Italy, UK, Sweden and Finland). The research project is focused on inbound innovation and it is aimed at identifying the OI models through which firms open their innovation funnel to their external partners, by means of an extended survey. The paper presents the first tentative results drawn from the survey, in terms of descriptive statistics (cluster analysis) and regressions, which allow depicting the different OI models actually adopted in the practice of companies. By relying on the conception of collaboration depth with two typical types of partners (scientific and business ones), four OI models are identified (open network innovators, supply chain collaborators, technology seekers and closed collaborators). Moreover, some determinants of such partner choices are outlined, as factors external and internal to the firms: technological trends are crucial to push firms towards external collaborations, above all with scientific partners; an aggressive innovation strategy, but also goals of innovation process efficiency exert a role. Lastly, the relationships among different OI models and both sides of innovation performance (novelty and efficiency) are investigated. In this regard, the organizational-managerial and social context factors emerge as relevant mediating variables, leading to a strong managerial implication: without an appropriate context, OI is not profitable.