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Currently, small and medium enterprises (SMEs) play a leading role in most of the world’s economies. For this reason, they seek technological competitiveness and improvement of their innovation activities. In this context, open innovation and eco-innovation are important elements to achieve these goals. With this background, the purpose of this paper is to analyze the relationship between technological capability, open innovation, and eco-innovation in corporate performance, testing a structural equation model using SmartPLS in a sample of 684 small and medium-sized companies in Mexico. The main results show that technological capability significantly influences open innovation and eco-innovation practices, not directly in corporate performance, but through open innovation or eco-innovation. Our results also confirm the positive effects that eco-innovation and open innovation have on SMEs’ corporate performance. These results have important implications in the literature on dynamic capabilities that have not been previously tested. For companies and decision-makers, it shows why these practices in small and medium-sized companies should be encouraged.

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Creativity is an essential source of innovation for small and medium enterprises (SMEs). Moreover, one challenge in SMEs is to transform the novel and useful ideas that arise from creativity into innovation, hence the interest of researchers in advancing knowledge in this area. This study analyses: (a) how the creative process influences the results of creativity, (b) the role that risk-taking plays as a mediator in the relationship between creativity and product innovation, and (c) the impact of innovation on the performance of SMEs. The research model is validated with data from 139 Chilean industrial SMEs, using the Partial Least Square (PLS) method. The results show the importance of the creative process is different stages in SMEs. It also shows that risk-taking serves as an enabler in SMEs' ability to turn creativity into product innovation. We conclude our findings by illustrating the positive effect of product innovation on SMEs' performance, a crucial issue in their competitiveness. These findings allow managers to verify that creativity is not a random result but an intentional process.

In this study, we aim to establish the factors that explain the technology acceptance of augmented reality (AR) in students’ engineering education. Technology acceptance of AR apps has been insufficiently investigated. We conceive a theoretical model to explain technology acceptance by relating behavioral intention to use with the variables subjective norm, technology optimism, technology innovativeness, perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness, and attitude toward using. An interactive AR app on electrical circuits was designed to assist students to overcome their difficulties in understanding how electricity works. A theoretical model was hypothesized and tested using structural equation modeling. The study was conducted using a sample of 190 engineering students. The results demonstrate the positive effect of technology optimism and technology innovativeness on perceived usefulness and attitude toward using, respectively. Furthermore, they suggest that attitude toward using is influenced by perceived usefulness but not directly by perceived ease of use. This could mean that students would be willing to use this app if they find it useful and not just easy to use. Finally, the results illustrate that attitude toward using firmly explains behavioral intention to use, which is consistent with the findings in previous studies. These results could guide how academics and higher education centers should approach the incorporation of these technologies in classrooms.

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