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Knowing the factors influencing the success of collaborative innovation is particularly relevant for both academics and practitioners. Nonetheless, many studies have regarded the megatrends influencing innovation imperatives, the development of co-innovation strategies, the selection of partners and the involvement of user communities, but not so much the understanding of how the co-innovation process is concretely designed and managed. Adding to extant research, the purpose of this paper is to explore how companies collaborate in co-innovation processes.

A longitudinal, single case study has been conducted on the co-innovation process between Loccioni, an Italian medium-sized, high tech family firm, and Pfizer, one of the largest companies operating in the pharmaceutical sector.

From the case study analysis, three main results have emerged. First, the role of medium-sized companies in leading the co-innovation process as both the initiator and orchestrator. Second, the interplay between the local and the global dimension of co-innovation and the importance of (un)formal roles in innovation. Third, the “double funnel” of co-innovation, linking both the technological and the relational dimensions. Specifically, the case highlights the relevance of the relational – beyond the technological – aspects of co-innovation, providing a relational model that links the geographical dimensions (local/distant) and the role of specific individuals.

The paper presents an example of how a medium-sized firm has implemented its co-innovation process, shedding new light on possible barriers and success factors that other smaller or similar companies may follow when dealing with large multinationals.

This paper aims to shed light on how family firms execute open innovation strategies by managing internal and external knowledge flows.

First, through a comprehensive literature review, the paper identifies the barriers to the acquisition and transfer of knowledge in open innovation processes. Second, it presents and discusses the results of an exploratory case study on Loccioni, an Italian family firm providing high-tech measurement solutions, highlighting how this family firm managed to overcome the barriers in executing an open innovation strategy.

The case study shows that Loccioni faced specific challenges in acquiring and transferring knowledge in its open innovation processes and developed two idiosyncratic capabilities – labelled imprinting and fraternization – that helped the firm overcome the barriers to knowledge acquisition and transfer. The analysis shows that these two capabilities are enabled by the distinctive goals and social capital characterizing family firms.

The paper creates a link between open innovation and family business research with an empirically grounded model illustrating how the idiosyncratic capabilities of a family firm help overcome the critical barriers to the acquisition and transfer of knowledge in executing an open innovation strategy.