Regional Integration and Local Systems for Innovation: Challenges for Small and Medium Enterprises. A Perspective from Mexico

This paper presents some considerations that emerged from discussions in the "Strategic and International Studies" research group at the Universidad Veracruzana in Mexico. The hypothesis that supports this paper is that most of the productive units in Latin America (SMES) are facing a challenge of enormous proportions: participate in local innovation systems as an unavoidable step for advancing in the regional integration process. Designing public policies geared toward stimulating innovation and integration of the SMES implies recognizing their specificity and characteristics, at least in the following dimensions: i) building capacity; ii) guidelines for learning; iii) management and directorial models; iv) network involvement; and v) financing schemes. The study holds that regional integration should conceptualize SMES as key actors in local innovation systems, which implies designing management models and systems adjusted to their specificities. This makes it necessary to transcend managerial ideology that anchors its dominating mechanisms in the preeminence of economic rationality as the only criterion for administering small and medium enterprises.