Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) influence growth of economies and businesseś efficiency and facilitate innovation through diffusion processes, usage practices and commercial success. Innovation, as well, has a direct impact on growth and competitiveness. The present empirical study has the objective to determine the effects of the ICTs as facilitators of innovation for a greater business performance of the industrial Micro, Small and Medium Sized Enterprises (MSMEs) on a developing country. In this sense, the measuring scales utilized were summited to a Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) under the Maximum Likelihood Method, counting with reliability and validity. The results obtained through the Structural Equation Modeling (SEM), since a sample of 288 MSMEs established in Guanajuato (Mexico), is allowed to infer that there exists enough empirical evidence the ICTs are a facilitator of innovation by influencing in this positive and significant manner; similarly, it was found that innovation and the use of ICTs substantially impact in the performance of the businesses studied. Therefore, the decision makers should pay special attention on the way they manage these key variables for business success

This empirical study was aimed at deepening the knowledge of the direct and indirect effects of entrepreneurial orientation (EO) on business performance and how industrial organization (IO) influences EO of micro and small firms from a city in a developing country, using the partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM). In this study, the satisfaction of the customers was considered as a mediator variable and the IO as a formative construct. The results show enough evidence that IO positively affects EO; EO positively influences business performance and customer satisfaction (CS); likewise, EO impacts business performance in a positive manner both directly and indirectly through CS. Regarding managerial implications, the study provides knowledge to managers over the processes of shaping strategy and decision making, stressing the importance of both encouraging the development of EO capabilities and focusing efforts on CS to improve business performance.

Understanding how capacities and resources of companies are crucial factors to improve business performance and competitiveness is a major issue for academics, policy, and decisionmakers. The purpose of this research is to analyze the effects of the adoption of information and communication technologies (ICTs) on marketing innovation as a key strategy to increase the business performance of small- and medium-sized Mexican manufacturing companies. A gap exists in the literature regarding the full understanding of the simultaneous relationship among ICTs, marketing innovation and business performance. For this reason, a quantitative approach and cross-sectional design were applied through Structural Equation Modelling, in which a simple random sampling technique and a self-administered questionnaire was used to gather data from a sample of 230 business owners in the state of Aguascalientes, Mexico. The results indicate that adopting ICTs has a significant influence on marketing innovation. Moreover, marketing innovation showed a considerable impact on business performance. Therefore, decision-makers must pay special attention to the adoption of ICTs, as they are of vital importance for the development of marketing innovations and competitive advantage. Decision-makers must also use their resources and capabilities in innovations that have an impact on the sales strategy, design and promotion of their new products as well as the redesign of existing ones to achieve higher levels of competitiveness.

Las pequeñas y medianas empresas (pymes) han desarrollado una capacidad de marketing que difiere de la convencional. La mayor parte de la literatura ha descuidado a la innovación en marketing, por considerarse una casualidad o por estar implícita en otro tipo de actividades, y solo recientemente se ha asociado a la competitividad. La presente investigación tuvo como objetivo verificar la relación de la innovación en marketing con el desempeño integral de las pymes y sus posibles implicaciones. Mediante la modelización de ecuaciones estructurales, se estimaron los efectos de esta innovación sobre el rendimiento empresarial. Los hallazgos revelaron su influencia significativa para orientar el desempeño, al implementar nuevos conceptos y medios de promoción, nuevos métodos de comercialización y modificación de sus envases, lo que impactó en mayor medida la parte comercial, además del ámbito administrativo, financiero y de recursos humanos.

Knowledge absorptive capacity (ACAP) is a key dynamic capability that boosts business innovation, particularly in developing economies. However, scarce studies focus on ACAP and technological innovation (TI) in the context of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Therefore, this study aims to examine the effects of two different types of knowledge absorptive capacities to generate TI in the context of the Mexican manufacturing industry and determine whether realized absorptive capacity (RACAP) mediates the relationship between potential absorptive capacity (PACAP) and TI. This analysis was carried out through an empirical study of predictive type and quantitative approach. A survey-type questionnaire was randomly applied to a sample of 249 SMEs. The survey confers 200 managers’ opinions on the manufacturing industry in Mexico. The outcomes obtained through the variance-based structural equations (PLS-SEM) approach revealed that PACAP significantly influences RACAP, whereas, RACAP does impact TI and has a full mediating effect on the relationship between PACAP and TI. Nevertheless, although the significant direct effect of PACAP on TI is not verified, this research demonstrated the significant indirect effect of PACAP on TI. The findings reveal important implications for managers and decision-makers who must direct their strategies and ensure that the external knowledge acquired is assimilated by their employees so that PACAP will result in the transformation and exploitation of the internal and external knowledge acquired (RACAP), converting it into new products and processes.