Description:
<jats:sec><jats:title content-type="abstract-subheading">Purpose</jats:title><jats:p>This is one of the first empirical studies aimed at analyzing the interrelation between creative partnerships (CPs), absorptive (AC), knowledge application (KA) capacities and innovation performance in food companies.</jats:p></jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title content-type="abstract-subheading">Design/methodology/approach</jats:title><jats:p>We tested this on a sample of 112 Italian medium-sized food firms that established CPs through a partial least square (PLS) structural equation model (SEM) approach.</jats:p></jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title content-type="abstract-subheading">Findings</jats:title><jats:p>Results are in favor of an important role of CPs in the innovation process of food firms analyzed only if combined with the development of the two internal capacities investigated (AC and KA).</jats:p></jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title content-type="abstract-subheading">Research limitations/implications</jats:title><jats:p>Implications are provided in order to stimulate new and more forms of collaboration between CIs and food firms as well as more empirical studies on this topic.</jats:p></jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title content-type="abstract-subheading">Originality/value</jats:title><jats:p>Few studies in food companies keep into account the role of internal capacities that firms have to build with the aim of acquiring external knowledge through partnerships, in particular in the specific context of CPs. These specific kinds of partnerships are becoming increasingly important because they provide key nonoverlapping knowledge and propose new creative methods, ways and answers that differentiate the innovation process of food firms.</jats:p></jats:sec>