Dynamic capabilities and innovation in a developing country SMEs: the role of absorptive, learning and adaptive capacities

After more than two decades of research on dynamic capabilities, it is quite unusual for empirical works to focus on their study applied to SMEs. Inside this context, our work tries to assess whether or not the dynamic capabilities (DC) of the SMEs positively influence their innovation capacity. The field study was conducted with the population of SMEs located in the city of Machala (Ecuador) and belonging to the trade sector, the sample comprising 109 companies. Our findings in this study show that not every dynamic capability is equally relevant in the Machala-based SMEs, given that while absorptive capacity and learning capacity have a positive and significant effect on innovation, adaptive capacity does not have a significant impact on the innovation processes of the firms under study.