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

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.