Innovation in Mexican Micro and Small Businesses: Individual Skills and Knowledge

• Main Authors: Mario Alberto García-Meza, Omar Neme-Castillo, Ana Lilia Valderrama-Santibáñez
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Athens Institute for Education and Research 2016-07-01
• Series: Athens Journal of Business & Economics
• Subjects: innovation; knowledge; micro and small businesses (msb); skills; spiral of innovation
• Online Access: https://www.athensjournals.gr/business/2016-2-3-6-Meza.pdf

A way to increase the value added to micro and small businesses (MSB) is through innovation, which starts from an intellectual capital where skills, attitudes, motivations and knowledge are the key. Innovation is seen as a process that results from the formation of skills of labor, and education or training and experience that leads to individual innovation. Thus, externalities of such skills translate into successful innovation processes (generation, development or modification of products and processes). Also, in transit through the spiral of innovation, which involves one step of creativity and one of entrepreneurship, three interrelated types of human skills come into play: basic, secondary and innovative. Therefore, the aim of the paper is to describe the importance of the individualsʼ skills and knowledge to the innovation process in Mexican MSB.