Identification of organizational innovation components to consolidate rural associative enterprises

The structural crisis experienced by vanilla grower organizations in Totonacapan threatens their permanence in a highly competitive and asymmetric commercial environment. The objective of the present study was to identify the components that integrate an organizational innovation strategy to consolidate rural associative enterprises (RAE). Based on information provided by five vanilla small producer associations in Puebla, Veracruz and San Luis Potosí, we estimated the organizational innovation index (OII) per component: small producer association, market development, technological management, management, and resource management. The results indicate that rural associative enterprises have significant lags in the following components: small producer association and management with a value of 0.46 respectively and 0.45 for market developement. The company valuation indicated that RAE2 and RAE1 had an OII of 0.64 and 0.50 respectively, while RAE3, RAE4 and RAE5 had values <0.40, this can be attributed to the fact that the companies have scarce management, commercial and technological capacities. Therefore, strengthening these five components enables rural associative enterprises to enhance their response capacities to more competitive markets.