Abstract
The agrifood industry contributes to sustaining the population and the economic growth in rural areas of Spain. Innovation in the agrifood sector has therefore become a necessity as a means of improving the competitiveness of companies and the territory, thus promoting sustainable rural development in areas currently characterised by social issues such as depopulation. Meeting this need requires the generation of specific knowledge on innovation in the rural agrifood industry to strategically steer the business management of innovation. This study aims to contribute to further improving the competitiveness of the agrifood industry through the interrelation of critical innovation factors in small and medium-sized agrifood enterprises, thus shedding light on the innovation environment of differentiated local products in depopulated rural regions. The qualitative Interpretive Structural Modelling (ISM) methodology was used with the participation of entrepreneurs and experts from the sector. The ISM was applied to a case study in Alcarria Conquense, a Spanish region that embodies the current problems of many rural territories. The results show four factors (cooperation, managerial skills, absorptive capacity, and market orientation) are binding variables with a high power of influence and dependence, and a fifth factor, funding, is the most dependent on the others. The work contributes to the literature by revealing the needs and opportunities for a potential strategic planning of rural development that can positively influence the problems of the region through innovation management in this industry.
Highlights
The agrifood industry has economic, social, and environmental implications, providing the rural population with a livelihood, and contributing to the economic growth of the local territory
Modelling (ISM) method; in the second phase, the preliminary results obtained from the model were applied to the companies in the territory identified as having the highest representation of the innovation processes in the study area
In rural territories with a small population, such as that of the case study, access to sources of financing for companies is vital for their development, given that their size, access to markets, and absorption capacity define their immediate future
Summary
The agrifood industry has economic, social, and environmental implications, providing the rural population with a livelihood, and contributing to the economic growth of the local territory. Due to the essential nature of this industry, constant innovation is required, because innovation has become a vital requirement to improve business competitiveness and regional development [1,2,3,4,5]. Territorial competitiveness serves to gauge a territory’s particular development potential, and aids in the planning and design of its programmes and strategies. Innovation relies on elements that are internal and external to its organisation [8,9,10]. According to Fumero and Ullastres (2017), the innovation of a company is the result of the attitudes, actions, and behaviours of a set of people with different capabilities who make up the company, and is mainly determined by the relationships established between these people and the environment [11].
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