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This study aims to extend the existing base of knowledge of proactive and reactive market orientation and innovation capability by testing their impact on the export performance of emerging-market small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in a Latin American context.

This paper is a replication study, and its data were collected through a survey answered by general, marketing, sales or export managers at 155 Mexican SMEs. The research model was tested using partial least squares.

The study results indicate that innovation capability and reactive market orientation are drivers of export performance in Latin American SMEs. Moreover, proactive market orientation has been found to have an indirect effect on export results.

This study highlights to managers of Latin American SMEs the importance of capability development and deployment to improve export performance.

SMEs enabled by strategic and technological innovation based on current and latent customer needs can advantageously perform in foreign markets and can drive economic growth and social and human development in Latin America.

Recent studies have focused on emerging-market enterprises and the necessity of developing dynamic capabilities to achieve internationalisation. This study extends previous research by assessing the robustness and generalizability of drivers in export performance for manufacturing SMEs in Latin America. In particular, it provides empirical insights on the capabilities to develop by Latin American SMEs to achieve better export performance.

Sustainable development challenges have been gaining increased attention from scholars across a wide range of disciplines and governments and business leaders of developed and developing countries. In this chapter, we present selected Latin American socioeconomic indicators, and we note that much progress is needed to achieve the region's many sustainable development goals. We bring forth contributions from different streams of innovation studies for addressing grand challenges, and we discourse on how they push the sustainable development mandate forward. Innovation scholars have highlighted the need to elaborate novel transformational approaches to innovation for addressing such pressing grand challenges. Some scholars have also proposed that while the innovation systems framework is well-suited for addressing sustainable development challenges, it must first be profoundly and radically transformed to account for the novel ways of innovating and integrating a diversity of systemic economic actors and social stakeholders who have conflicting visions, interests, norms, and expectations. We present the different foundational strengths and weaknesses of the innovation systems framework and we discuss the pertinence for its profound and radical transformation. We conclude by organizing these different, yet complementary views of innovation in a conceptual framework while discussing the implications for Latin America and future research.

The purpose of this chapter is to analyze, from the Latin American thought approach (LTA), the ideas that were produced after World War II on innovation and entrepreneurship in Latin America. It should be mentioned, from now on, that in this approach the topics, phenomena, or problems are always contextualized within a broader problem to be solved, namely that of development. To this end, two axes of analysis are addressed from which the analytical bases, approaches, key concepts, and public policy proposals are located. The first axis explores the proposals related to the development and the idea of the center-periphery model. The second analyzes the role of innovation and entrepreneurship based on the industrialization model, to identify the problems or inadequacies of Latin American entrepreneurship. The proposal emphasizes the need to contextualize entrepreneurship in the broad dimension of development. In this journey, it will be observed that the role of the entrepreneur has been of relevance for the import substitution industrialization (ISI) model in its beginnings by assigning her/him the task of supplying the domestic market by substituting imports, to reduce degrees of dependence in an asymmetric economic world; in the maturity stage of the model, the need for entrepreneurship was affirmed by incorporating innovation. Briefly, we will see that when the model changed, mainly in the 1980s, the firm would assume the role of a resource center for technological accumulation to achieve competitiveness and significantly insert itself in the export market. From Latin America's history in search for development, we can conclude that innovative business entrepreneurship has been less successful and less effective than Latin America requires.

This paper aims to analyse the influence of cooperation on the degree of novelty of technological innovations introduced by industrial firms in Argentina. This influence is analysed from three perspectives: cooperation by partner type [business partners or scientific and technological centres (S&T) partners]; cooperation by number of partner types, from no cooperation to cooperation with two partner types; and cooperation by goals pursued by firms.

The data come from one of the last national innovation surveys conducted in Argentina. The study controls for endogeneity, using instrumental variable procedures within the conditional mixed-process (CMP) framework.

The main result is the influence of cooperation with universities and S&T centres on the introduction of more novel innovations, which was found both in estimations with and without endogeneity correction. This influence was verified for more complex goals (R&D, technology transfer and industrial design and engineering) as well as for less complex ones (tests and trials, human resources training, quality management and certification). Business cooperation seems to impact only on a lower degree of novelty for more complex goals. The increase in the number of partners that the firm cooperates with, from no cooperation to joint cooperation with two partner types, influences more novel innovations.

Limitations and proposals for future research are discussed at the end of the study.

The results of this study contrast with the high propensity to cooperate with business partners shown by firms in Argentina and other Latin American countries. Therefore, this paper may help formulate more effective policies to promote cooperation conducive to firm innovation performance. Limitations and proposals for future research are discussed at the end of the study.

Although there is empirical evidence on this topic for developed countries, firm-level studies on cooperation and degree of novelty are scarce for Latin America. In addition, this paper analyses cooperation not only by type of partner but also by type of goal. This study attempted to control for endogeneity by using instrumental variables within the CMP framework.

This exploratory study identifies key pillars on which innovative business models rely in the Latin American retail landscape. First, using qualitative research methods, we delve into the minds of Latin America's emerging consumers to uncover their needs and paradigms. In a region where retail innovation has traditionally been targeted at high-income consumers, we find a new breed of retailers that cater to the large mass of emerging consumers. Second, we explore the avenues of innovation retailers have followed to serve this impoverished segment and find that retailers' efforts to innovate have resulted in at least three original retail formats: one centered on providing access to durable goods, another centered on offering a wide assortment of goods and a convenient location, and the last one centered on incorporating design and quality. Based on the wheel of retailing theory, we show how these new formats are changing the structure of the retail industry in the region.

The purpose of this paper is to present eight papers selected from ALTEC 2015 that provide an overview of innovation in Latin America.

This editorial seeks to define innovation by examining its conceptual foundations. It considers innovation beyond firms and technology to address other forms, such as social and institutional innovations. Thereafter, it discusses innovation in the context of Latin America and suggests means by which to stimulate it in the region. Finally, the authors present the eight papers included in this “special edition.”

The major findings of the paper are that it considers non-technological innovation within firms, innovation beyond the firm and innovation beyond technology. Moreover, it helps to better understand a core issue of innovation in Latin America, which is the focus on macroeconomic policy instead of microeconomic stimuli.

A broader understanding of the concept of innovation is of notable importance. Innovation implies the recognition of issues related to the market (firm), but also to the community (society) and to humanly devised constraints (institutions). Technology is only one part of it. For this special issue, the selected articles highlight the efforts made by different authors to contribute to innovation studies in the editors’ region.

Este número presenta ocho manuscritos seleccionados del ALTEC 2015, que ofrecen un panorama de la innovación en América Latina.

Esta editorial busca definir la innovación mediante la examinación de sus fundamentos conceptuales. Esto considera que la innovación va más allá de las firmas y la tecnología para abordar otros tipos, tales como innovación social e institucional. Posteriormente, se analiza la innovación en el contexto de América Latina y se sugieren medios para su estimulo en la región. Finalmente, presentamos los ocho artículos incluidos en esta Edición Especial.

Las principales conclusiones de esta editorial son que se considera la innovación no tecnológica dentro de las firmas, la innovación más allá de la firma y la innovación más allá de la tecnología. Además, esto ayuda a comprehender mejor una cuestión central de la innovación en América Latina, que es el enfoque en política macroeconómica en lugar de los estímulos microeconómicos.

Un mayor entendimiento del concepto de innovación es de gran importancia. La innovación implica el reconocimiento de las cuestiones relacionadas con el mercado (firma), pero también con la comunidad (sociedad) y con las restricciones humanamente concebidas (instituciones). La tecnología es solo una parte de esta. Para esta Edición Especial, los artículos seleccionados destacan los esfuerzos realizados por diferentes autores para contribuir a los estudios de innovación en nuestra región.

Starting from the knowledge-based view as a theoretical perspective, this study aims to examine how an emerging market multinational enterprise (EMMNE) engages in reverse knowledge transfer (RKT) processes and how such processes are managed by headquarters. Therefore, this paper captures the perspective of top management concerning RKT and the processes used to create, transfer and integrate knowledge.

The study uses a longitudinal design based on the case method of investigation. The case selected for the study was a Brazilian company theoretically sampled for being a domestically, regionally and globally important, information-rich company that operates in an industry in which technology plays a crucial role. The company was also selected for having had asset-seeking motives in at least some of its foreign market entries and for having successfully absorbed foreign-acquired capabilities.

The study provides counterfactual evidence to the springboard perspective, considering timing and speed of the internationalization and catch-up processes and the size of acquisitions. The study also highlights differences to other emerging market multinational enterprises, concerning the internationalization trajectory and catch-up moves, and to traditional MNEs, regarding RKT challenges and practices.

The main limitations of the study relate to the case study method, which does not allow for statistical generalization, although it does support analytical generalization.

The study contributes to the literature by shedding light on the process by which a Latin American multinational firm developed technological capabilities to compete globally, focusing on the symbiotic, self-nurturing relationship between internationalization processes and technology acquisition and integration processes. Moreover, the work provides novel theoretical insights regarding timing, location, size and execution of the RKT activities. Finally, the paper contributes to the understanding of the relational aspects of the RKT process by focusing on building human relationships as the major force behind knowledge integration and examining the resistance of the acquired companies from developed markets to adopt the parent company’s best practices, or to contribute to its integrated knowledge, when the parent company is an EMMNE.

To provide a comprehensive systematic review of entrepreneurship in the context of emerging markets (EMs). The area of research is topical considering the rise of EMs on the global scene and the importance of entrepreneurship in the development of EMs.

The paper utilizes scientometrics to provide a systematic review of the emerging field of entrepreneurship in EMs (EEMs). The entire Web of Science database was searched, and 2,568 scholarly outputs were extracted and analyzed as a result. The review further compares the EEMs research to the mainstream entrepreneurship research based on the top trending and high impact themes, demonstrates which countries published and are studied in the EEMs scholarship, and finally, it provides a proportion of empirical research done on EEMs to highlight methods utilized in the existing research.

The scientometric review reveals three broad domains of the EEMs scholarship–(1) Entrepreneurship in EMs and its implications; (2) MNEs, institutional environments, and FDI; and (3) Strategy, innovation and performance. The findings demonstrate that EEMs' scholarship primarily discusses environments within which EEMs takes place, the implications of EEMs, strategy and performance of EEMs (macro and meso-levels), thus highlighting the need for micro-level (individual-based) analysis of EEMs. Approximately, a third of the EEMs research is of empirical nature, more should be done especially in quantitative studies to develop this field further.

This research is unique in providing the largest review of EEMs scholarship. It divides the entire scholarship into three inter-related research streams and identifies future research directions in this immensely important field of research.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the microfoundations of innovation-enabling dynamic capabilities in Latin American firms and, in particular, their processes to: sense and shape opportunities; seize opportunities; and maintain competitiveness through reconfiguring assets.

The authors carried out a confirmatory factor analysis of survey data obtained from a sample of 721 firms located in Latin America, and employed a hierarchical analysis of linear regressions with robust standard errors to test the hypotheses.

The authors found that when firms manage their innovation processes based on sensing opportunities and reconfiguring their tangible and intangible assets, they are more likely to improve on four innovation-related outcomes: development of new products and services; profitability; market share; and diversification.

The findings are limited to the specific context of Latin American countries. In particular, the authors took a random sample of firms from a business directory built by prestigious Latin American business schools, but that may not be representative. Therefore, the generalizability of the results is limited beyond the type of companies that are represented in that sampling frame.

Contributions are twofold. First, the authors test the applicability of an orchestration model of dynamic capabilities to the Latin American context. And, second, the authors relate specific microfoundations of dynamic capabilities to the ability of firms to innovate successfully.

El objetivo de este documento es explorar las micro-fundaciones de las capacidades dinámicas que hacen posible la innovación en las empresas latinoamericanas. En particular, sus procesos para: (1) detectar y dar forma a las oportunidades, (2) aprovechar las oportunidades y (3) mantenerse competitivas a través de la reconfiguración de sus activos.

Realizamos un análisis factorial confirmatorio con datos de una encuesta que hicimos a una muestra de 721 empresas en Latinoamérica, y empleamos un análisis jerárquico de regresiones lineales con error estándar robusto para probar nuestras hipótesis.

Encontramos que cuando las empresas administran sus procesos de innovación basándose en (1) la detección de oportunidades y (2) la reconfiguración de sus activos tangibles e intangibles, es más probable que mejoren en cuatro objetivos relacionados a innovación: (1) desarrollo de nuevos productos y servicios, (2) sus retornos, (3) participación de mercado y (4) diversificación.

Nuestros hallazgos están limitados al contexto específico de los países de América Latina. Específicamente, tomamos una muestra aleatoria de empresas de un directorio de negocios creado por prestigiosas escuelas de negocios latinoamericanas, pero que puede no ser representativo. Entonces, la generalizabilidad de nuestros resultados es limitada más allá del tipo de empresas que están representadas en este marco muestral.

Las contribuciones son dobles. Primero, probamos la aplicabilidad de un modelo de orquestación de capacidades dinámicas en el contexto latinoamericano. Y, segundo, relacionamos micro-fundaciones específicas de capacidades dinámicas con la habilidad de las empresas para innovar exitosamente.

This paper aims to examine how environmental, social and governance (ESG) practices are influenced by environmental innovations and how cultural dimensions moderate this interaction in Latin American companies.

In this paper 157 companies from 6 Latin American countries were studied between 2010 and 2021, with a total of 1,204 observations. Data were collected from Refinitiv Eikon®, and results were generated using ordinary least squares regression, with country and year as controls.

ESG performance is higher in companies that invest in environmental innovation; innovation positively affects individual ESG factors; and masculinity, individualism, indulgence and power distance positively or negatively moderate the relationship between innovation and ESG performance, as well as environmental and social dimensions.

Our findings contribute to the body of knowledge on sustainable practices in different cultures. We draw the attention of standard setters to the impact of innovation and culture on ESG practices in different countries.

Better understanding of how environmental innovation can mitigate inequality, poverty and environmental issues in Latin America, promoting equitable development and environmental preservation.

Latin American countries show significant levels of poverty, social and productive heterogeneity, and deficiencies in sustainable practices. Therefore, providing information on innovation as an incentive for better sustainable policies can promote these practices.

Our study fills a gap by examining the specific influence of environmental innovation on ESG performance, particularly through its interactions with cultural dimensions, in a sample of Latin American firms.

Examinar cómo las prácticas de Medio Ambiente, Social y Gobierno Corporativo (ESG) se ven influenciadas por las innovaciones ambientales y cómo las dimensiones culturales moderan esta interacción en las empresas latinoamericanas.

Se estudiaron 157 empresas de 6 países latinoamericanos entre 2010 y 2021, con un total de 1,204 observaciones. Los datos se recopilaron de Refinitiv Eikon® y los resultados se generaron utilizando regresiones de mínimos cuadrados ordinarios, con el país y el año como variables de control.

El desempeño ESG es mayor en empresas que invierten en innovación ambiental; la innovación afecta positivamente a factores ambientales, sociales y de gobierno corporativo individuales; y la masculinidad, el individualismo, la indulgencia y la distancia de poder moderan positiva o negativamente la relación entre la innovación y el desempeño ESG, así como las dimensiones ambientales y sociales.

Nuestro estudio llena un vacío al examinar la influencia específica de la innovación ambiental en el desempeño ESG, especialmente a través de sus interacciones con las dimensiones culturales, en una muestra de empresas latinoamericanas.

Mejor comprensión de cómo la innovación ambiental puede mitigar la desigualdad, la pobreza y los problemas ambientales en América Latina, promoviendo el desarrollo equitativo y la preservación del medio ambiente.

Los países latinoamericanos muestran niveles significativos de pobreza, heterogeneidad social y productiva, y deficiencias en prácticas sostenibles. Por lo tanto, proporcionar información sobre la innovación como incentivo para políticas más sostenibles puede promover estas prácticas.

Nuestros hallazgos contribuyen al cuerpo de conocimiento sobre prácticas sostenibles en diferentes culturas. Llamamos la atención de los reguladores sobre el impacto de la innovación y la cultura en las prácticas ESG en diferentes países.