Findings show that openness, if measured in terms of partner intensity and phase intensity,
fully mediates the relationship between technological strategy and innovation performance, by
suggesting that the effectiveness of a firm’s technologically aggressive behavior is strongly
related to the intensification of collaboration with the partners along the innovation funnel. Conversely,
openness variety seems to play an opposite role and is influenced differently by partner and phase
intensity. This result likely emphasizes how the cost-side of open behavior becomes harder to manage,
and thus costly, when it involves too many different types of partners, phases and contents.