Title: Entrepreneurial capabilities and innovation in firms from late industrialising countries: a case study of a Mexican firm

Authors: Arturo Torres; Javier Jasso

Addresses: Postgraduate Program in Economics and Management of Innovation, Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana-Xochimilco, Calzada del Hueso 1100, Col. Villa Quietud, Coyoacán, CP 04960, Ciudad de Mexico, Mexico ' Research Division of the Faculty of Accounting and Management, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Mexico (UNAM), Ciudad Universitaria 3000, Coyoacán, 04310, Ciudad de Mexico, Mexico

Abstract: This paper analyses the role of entrepreneurial capabilities (EC) in the process of innovation of firms from late industrialising countries. The article characterises the emergence and growth of a Mexican firm with regard to the complexity and configuration of those capabilities, since the time when it was founded as a small distributor of products, until it acquired technological and organisational capabilities for the design and production of medical care devices. The argument is that as a firm gradually undertakes more complex activities, 'entrepreneurial capabilities' evolve and in that process, individual entrepreneurial capabilities become collective capabilities internalised in the firm's routines.

Keywords: innovation; entrepreneurial capabilities; firm growth; technological capabilities; organisational capabilities; entrepreneurship; late industrialising countries; case study; Mexico; medical devices.

DOI: 10.1504/IJWI.2017.080724

International Journal of Work Innovation, 2017 Vol.2 No.1, pp.101 - 120

Accepted: 06 May 2016
Published online: 05 Dec 2016 *

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