3 • L’open innovation nei contratti di rete Le reti fanno rete

This chapter addresses the issue of open innovation applied to business networks to explore the impact that additional collaborations with partners outside the network have on the network’s innovation performance. The results of the empirical analysis show the relevance of the presence of external partners as sources of information and knowledge for innovation and thus suggest that a network contract needs an external network: the creation of networks that perform with respect to innovation requires both the presence of internal network contract members capable of contributing tangible and intangible resources to the network and the contract network’s ability to dialogue with a larger network of external partners.