1.Conceptual background
1.1 Open innovation and knowledge flows
Nowadays companies are increasingly rethinking the ways in which they generate ideas and bring them to the market. This leads them to the harnessing external ideas and leveraging their in-house R&D outside their current operations to a greater extent (Chesbrough, 2003). The boundaries between companies and their surrounding environment become porous, enabling innovation to move easily through them Companies take advantage of different internal and external knowledge sources for innovation opportunities, integrate them with their capabilities and resources, and exploit these opportunities through multiple channels, such as IP licensing, joint ventures, spin-offs and similar. According to the initiator of OI paradigm H.W. Chesbrough (2006), open innovation is defined as "the use of purposive inflows and outflows of knowledge to accelerate internal innovation, and expand the markets for external use of innovation, respectively