**6. Discussion and Conclusions**

In line with Rosa, Chimendes and Amorim [51], we can claim that an open innovation model guides companies towards opportunities in a more interactive way, seeking the integration of knowledge between them. Companies need to innovate constantly, faster and more original than competing companies [31], and this makes communication, networking and collaboration between knowledge producers and users fundamental [52].

The present study aimed to investigate the probability of using different sources with respect to the type of innovation, since through the analysis of these relationships it is possible to manage the inand outflow of information related to innovation in a more efficient and easier way [21]. To answer our research questions, Hungary's data on Community Innovation Survey have been used, and probit as well as OLS regressions were applied.

The above examination unequivocally supports our perception of the different nature of innovation source strategies based on the type of innovation. We can derive that food companies in Hungary use different types of sources of innovation during their product, process, organization and market development processes. It has also been shown that at least two different, but connecting layers are formulating the sourcing strategy, namely (a) orientation and (b) quantity decision. Based on the analysis, food companies can compile their search strategies according to the nature of their planned innovation activities. They can also use the results related to open innovating companies: if they want to engage on the European market, or even on the world market, they must necessarily cooperate with universities and research institutes.

Our results follow the footsteps of studies already present in the literature, which have shown that collaboration is a worthy way for improving the innovation capacity of companies [41,53–56].

With regard to product innovation, previous literature argues that collaboration with other external sources plays a fundamental role, provided the resources necessary for business success are not available within the company [57,58]. In addition, our contribution discovers that in this specific case, the more the desired product innovation is, the greater quantity of information from each sourcing group is used.

It happens partly di fferently for process and organization innovations, where business sources are preferred. In particular, process innovation favors the use of just a few sources, the organizational innovation evolves more or less in the same way as product innovation. These results find their basis of reasoning in the study of Gumusluoglu and Ilsev [42], Dressler and Paunovic [59], Amit and Zott, [60] and Capitanio and colleagues [45], which highlight the importance of external support in organizational and process innovation.

In accordance with Storbacka and Nenonen [61], we finally found that market innovation prefers to turn to a few, mainly downstream sources, as this represents a complex, delicate and confidential division of a company.

A very important aspect to consider in relation to innovation is that of sustainability, too [62,63]. Sustainable partnerships encourage companies to adopt practices that o ffer environmental, economic and social benefits to their wider communities [64]. Once companies understand that innovating is likely to o ffer private economic benefits in terms of lower input costs or better business results, they will make the economic decisions to carry them out. However, the community's interest should prioritize those innovation practices with the greatest environmental benefits to improve the overall sustainability [59]. If the Hungarian food companies follow the strategical sourcing recommendations developed in this study, they really can contribute to better economic sustainability of the society, but they are also supposed to prefer those innovations, which have more environmental and social benefits.

We deem this study has important implications for the Hungarian market, which is now struggling to innovate. We sugges<sup>t</sup> to policymakers that it is worth considering support and encouraging companies in their creation and maintaining good networks with commercial, scientific and professional partners in order to help companies' progress for private, social and environmental advantage. It is also important to help companies in continuous innovation activities by di fferent means (e.g., tax reduction). We also believe that our results can help the politics of inspiring food companies to cooperate with their competitors on the world market rather than locally, thus managing to improve innovation adequately.

However, despite the gap-filling nature of our study, there are mainly two limitations that a ffect the validity of our results. The first is that there is a geographical boundary which should be dissolved by extending the survey to other countries which are included in the CIS system. The second limitation is given by the time constraint which ought to be reduced. Although the data of CIS 2014 are available, these do not contain data on the sources of information on innovation. It would therefore be interesting to see how the sourcing strategy changes over time. Based on the above, an interesting future research area could be to extend the analysis to other sectors of the economy as well, and make a comparison between "slow" (such as food and agriculture) and "fast"(like IT) industries. Furthermore, it may be useful to make a further comparison with the markets of the more or less developed countries compared to Hungary, to see the significant di fferences.

**Author Contributions:** All authors have read and agree to the published version of the manuscript. Conceptualization, J.T.; methodology, J.T.; software, G.R.; validation, J.T. and G.R.; formal analysis, J.T.; investigation, J.T.; resources, J.T.; data curation, J.T. and G.R.; writing—original draft preparation, G.R.; writing—review and editing, J.T. and G.R.; visualization, G.R.; supervision, J.T.; project administration, J.T.; funding acquisition, J.T.

**Funding:** This research was funded by National Research, Development and Innovation Office (NKFI), Hungary, gran<sup>t</sup> number OTKA-120563.

**Conflicts of Interest:** The authors declare no conflict of interest.
