No abstract

Based on survey data about firms in Mexico this paper investigates the determinants of innovation, and the linkages between innovation and productivity in the services sector. We applied a three-stage Crépon-Duguet-Mairesse (CDM) econometric model; the use of manufacturing firms as benchmark helped to better appreciate our findings. The paper identified that a series of structural, performance, and behavioral factors increase a firm's propensity to invest in innovation, but some differences arise between services and manufacturing firms. Intensive investment in innovation leads to superior innovation performance, while innovation output has a positive impact on labor productivity.JEL classification: L8, O12, O14, O31, O33, O38, O40

No abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has prompted an unprecedented reaction in several multinational enterprises (MNEs). These MNEs have adopted social innovation approaches to meet the needs of vulnerable societal groups by swiftly innovating their business models; drastically changing their product offerings and customer bases; and producing COVID-19 necessities. These approaches have alleviated some key pandemic-induced social challenges related to health and sanitation. In this perspective article, we use secondary sources of information to present and exemplify the various types of MNE pandemic-induced social innovation approaches. We open the discussion on whether these approaches are transitory in nature or whether they can and should be sustained in the long-term, given the right incentives to these MNEs. We conclude by redefining MNEs' social innovation and by suggesting avenues for scholars, practitioners, policymakers, and educators to support this momentum in MNEs which we argue, if sustainable, can be fruitful for addressing other pressing grand challenges such as climate change, food security, poverty, and inequality.

Latin American countries still account for most of the world's social challenges: extreme poverty, malnutrition, high infant mortality, low life expectancy and a decline in schooling quality indicators. For many countries, Mexico included, a number of these problems can be traced to income inequality, a lowqualified workforce, increasing presence of informal sectors and the dominance of economic structures heavily dependent on low-intensive technological sectors. Limited investment in science, technology and innovation (STI) also remains a salient feature of these economies. In this regard, a growing stream of literature has drawn attention for linking STI to broader economic and developmental agen- Agenda, p. 53, 2012). From the National Innovation System (NIS) perspective (Freeman 1987; Lundvall 1992 Lundvall , 2010Nelson 1993;Edquist 1997Edquist , 2006, STI policy has been crucial as a means for development and consolidation of NIS's agents both in academia and the productive sector, as well as in incentivizing a dynamic interaction between them. Likewise, important for STI policy is to promote and sustain the creation, dissemination and use of knowledge as an interactive, self-reinforcing mechanism guiding the generation of STI capacities, the operation of and governance of the STI system and its correspondence with the dynamics of social and economic systems. Public policy in general and STI policy in particular shape and reshape the institutional framework in which the system's agents perform, and at the same time, the institutional framework sets some boundaries to the unfolding of public intervention. This chapter analyses how public policies have contributed, or not, to the building and nurturing the Mexican System of Innovation, and how the emergent system feedbacks the design, tailoring and implementation of STI policies in Mexico. We also consider the institutional environment in which the NIS performs, the mechanisms governing public funding, as well as the configuration of the policy mix, as a fundamental part of the public action that seeks to influence the social and economic dynamics of the country. The analysis is focused on how the policies, the system and the institutional environment have co-evolved since the 1940s. Settings: A Research