The paper "The Paradox of Openness: Appropriability, External Search and Collaboration" by Keld Laursen and Ammon J. Salter explores the relationship between firms' openness to external actors and their appropriability strategies. The authors argue that while firms need to be open to external knowledge to innovate, they also need to protect their innovations to capture returns. This creates a paradox: openness is necessary for innovation but commercialization requires protection. Using data from a UK innovation survey, they find a concave relationship between firms' breadth of external search and formal collaboration for innovation, and the strength of their appropriability strategies. The concave relationship is stronger for formal collaboration than for external search. The study also suggests that the relationship is less pronounced if firms do not collaborate with competitors. The findings have implications for understanding the literature on open innovation and innovation strategy.The paper "The Paradox of Openness: Appropriability, External Search and Collaboration" by Keld Laursen and Ammon J. Salter explores the relationship between firms' openness to external actors and their appropriability strategies. The authors argue that while firms need to be open to external knowledge to innovate, they also need to protect their innovations to capture returns. This creates a paradox: openness is necessary for innovation but commercialization requires protection. Using data from a UK innovation survey, they find a concave relationship between firms' breadth of external search and formal collaboration for innovation, and the strength of their appropriability strategies. The concave relationship is stronger for formal collaboration than for external search. The study also suggests that the relationship is less pronounced if firms do not collaborate with competitors. The findings have implications for understanding the literature on open innovation and innovation strategy.