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Our goal is to understand process innovation activities, constraints, and challenges. Collaboration and Research and Development (R&D) are vital for innovation, but many Small- and Medium-size Enterprises (SMEs) need to improve on these, necessitating focused efforts. Innovation is linked to growth, productivity, and capacity, demanding new offerings and process improvement. Surveying 56 Colombian exporting SMEs with a 19-question survey, we employed Artificial Neural Network (ANN) models and Spearman correlation for predicting Process Innovation. Scrutinizing requisite activities and their impact is essential for economic growth, allowing SMEs to enhance performance through market-driven innovation. Collaboration with research institutions and suppliers is pivotal, highlighting its importance for process innovation. Process-focused firms emphasize process innovation, while Colombian exporting SMEs prioritize it for competitiveness. Technological learning shapes strategies, and SMEs leverage market innovation. We identified links between R&D/innovation (R&D+I) and export behavior. Innovation aids internationalization despite Colombia's innovation gap. Enterprises invest in R&D+I and external collaboration, while SMEs focus on efficiency. Prospective research should explore interconnections in innovation facets, harnessing machine learning.
Henríquez-Calvo et al. (Mon,) studied this question.