This paper explores the drivers of inter-firm R&D collaborations in a particular type of innovation network, the technological districts created in Italy under a specific public policy to promote innovation. The empirical analysis used an original database containing information on research...

Empirical evidence on the evolution of innovation networks within high-tech industries is still scant. We investigate network formation processes by analyzing the timing of firms to enter R&D cooperations, using data on laser source manufacturers in Germany, 1990-2010. Network measures are...

Start-up collaboration units (SCUs) are organizational units specifically created by large companies to facilitate collaboration with start-ups within their corporate innovation ecosystems (CIEs). The purpose of this study is to analyze the role of SCUs with reference to the transfer of...

Open innovation has rendered increased interest both in practice and research, and has expanded from dyadic transfers of ideas, to ecosystem levels. Knowledge is at the heart of open innovation, and this paper describes and discusses knowledge-transfer linkages for open innovation. It does so...

The National Council of Research (CNR), the largest public research body in Italy, has, from 1995 to 1998, tried a technological transfer (TT) virtual network with the aim of stimulating and coordinating initiatives for matching the supply of public scientific research and the innovation demand...

This paper analyses the effects of innovation networks on product and process innovation and sales growth of high technology SMEs. Innovation networks are positively related to both product and process innovation, i.e. knowledge creation. One exception is the negative effect of innovation...