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Chapter 1
The History of Entrepreneurship in Mexico: A View from the Academic Lens
Oscar Javier Montiel Méndez and María Guadalupe Calderón
Abstract
The legitimacy of history: dictated Bloch. Today, in many areas of knowledge, and of course in entrepreneurship (Wadhwani, 2010), it has become superlative. The aim of this chapter is analyzing the literature about entrepreneurship in Mexico mainly from the last 11 years of studies on the subject. Through this review, we want to highlight the progress in the field, as well as deeper opportunities in its research as a result of it, the profound need for incorporating them not only in the national academic debate but also into the entrepreneurship ecosystem and in specific public policies.
Keywords: History; Mexico; entrepreneurship; literature review; innovation; creativity
Dad, explain to me what history is for (Bloch, 1952, p. 9).
1.1 Introduction
It is suggested that the history of entrepreneurship in Mexico has generally been told from two axes: business families and family businesses (Almaraz & Ramírez, 2016). 1 On both sides, there is considerable literature, where actors, hierarchies, and institutions (including industrial sectors) have generally been placed in the center (Wadhwani & Lubinski, 2017), following economic tradition.
Recognizing the close link between entrepreneurship and economics, as Wadhwani and Lubinski do, the present chapter attempts to see this relationship the other way around, and places the processes of the former as the central axis, the creation of a vision and the valuation of opportunities, allocation and reconfiguration of resources, and the legitimization of the novelties (innovation), all these elements that have their genesis in a creative process. Therefore, it suggested exploring how the latest research has been, under the focus of entrepreneurship, generated in our country, which various approaches have followed, as well as areas of research opportunity that can be generated in the short- and medium-term.
Baumeister and Leary (1997) suggest using a historical literature review to examining research throughout a period, then tracing its evolution within the scholarship of a discipline; place research in a historical context, latest developments; and identify the likely directions for future research. Seminal papers in the Mexican context, like Brandenburg (1962) and Baklanoff and Brannon (1984), traced the path of what is now becoming a consolidated research interest.
1.2 Method and Data
A search was made in the Social Science Citation Index (SSCI) database from 1900 to 2019, with the search criteria “Entrepreneurship” and “Mexico” (both in English and Spanish). In total, 204 documents were found (none under the search in Spanish). In the results, was clear that Entrepreneurship as a research topic (in the form of scientific papers on journals) gains momentum in or about Mexico since 2008. Before that year, there are mainly documents in this area as proceedings or book chapters. Included were also three papers that were found on the SCImago Journal and Country Rank (SJR).
With the use of the abstracts of the publications and using text analysis tools, a series of associated words in the documents was detected. Using software for qualitative data analysis, the terms were automatically coded and located in the abstract of each document. As Fig. 1.1 shows, it appears that most are on the economic dimension of entrepreneurship (entrepreneur and business, 48%), with the education dimension coming in second place (university and students, 22%), both sums up 70%. Clearly, there are few studies on women, an area of opportunity for gender studies on Mexico's ecosystem.
Fig. 1.1. Terms Encoded in Documents. Source: Authors' own calculations, according to Social Science Citation Index (2019).
To deepen the analysis of the documents a similarity matrix was designed in the software for qualitative data analysis, which allows establishing code relationships and thus makes an in-depth reading of the texts that present co-occurrence. These results in the analysis data are shown below by encoded terms (Entrepreneur, Business, University, Development, Social, Students, and Women were used). These are related to the research lines in studies about entrepreneurship, and they are based on the categorization of clusters (see Annex A), according to Meyer et al. (2013) in which they introduced, through a rigorous bibliometric study, the emergence and development of entrepreneurship as an independent field of study from the 1990s. Therefore, our codes fit with Meyer et al. (2013) as follows: Entrepreneur (B4, E3, B2, A5), Business (A1, D1, E1, E3, E4, E5), University (A3, E1, E2, E3), Development (B1, C3, E4), Social (B1, B2, B4), Students (A1, A3), and Women (B2).
1.3 Results
In the following graphs, we show a descriptive analysis of the documents found. The main areas of knowledge (Web of Science categories) in which the documents are classified are Business, Economics, Management, Educational and Research, Development Studies, and Political Science. Just as Fig. 1.1, in Fig. 1.2 most are on the economic dimension of entrepreneurship, with the education dimension coming in second place, where the latter categories sum up 24% and clearly recognizing the multidimensionality of entrepreneurship is an area of opportunity.
Fig. 1.2. Web of Science Categories. Source: Authors' own calculations, according to Social Science Citation Index (2019).
Regarding the year of the publications and percentage (Fig. 1.3), it is observed that the studies on entrepreneurship in Mexico are recent. Articles published in this index began mainly in 2006. The average of annual publications in the last 5 years (2015–2019) is 23.
Fig. 1.3. Percentage by Total of Documents Found (204). Source: Authors' own calculations, according to Social Science Citation Index (2019).
In Table 1.1 the researcher’s institution can be observed, where the two main Mexican universities are on top.
Table 1.1.Researcher’s Institution.
| Organizations | Count |
| Tecnologico de Monterrey | 29 |
| Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México | 8 |
| University of California System | 7 |
| The World Bank | 6 |
| University of Texas System | 6 |
| Autonomous University of Barcelona | 5 |
| Universidad Autónoma de Baja California | 5 |
| University of New Mexico | 5 |
| California State University System | 4 |
| Universidad Anáhuac | 4 |
| Universidad Autónoma de Tamaulipas | 4 |
| Universidad de Cantabria | 4 |
| Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas (CIDE) | 3 |
| Centro de Investigación y de Estudios Avanzados del Instituto Politécnico Nacional | 3 |
| Instituto Politécnico Nacional | 3 |
| Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México | 3 |
| Universidad de las Américas de Puebla | 3 |
| Universidad Autónoma de Yucatán | 3 |
| Universidad Juárez Autónoma de Tabasco | 3 |
| University of Illinois System | 3 |
| University of Illinois Urbana Champaign | 3 |
| Arizona State University | 2 |
| Bank Italy | 2 |
| Baruch College Cuny | 2 |
| Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla | 2 |
In general, the subject of the publications subscribes to business and management, despite having multiple issues in Mexico's entrepreneurship ecosystem that require the interest of researchers. On the other hand, even though the number of publications has increased visibility in recent years, it is observed that they are still concentrated in few universities, so it is necessary to motivate more interest from the federal and state public university systems.
Fig. 1.4 shows the researchers' preference for publishing their work, and possibly a reflection where the institutional research budgets are planned, a clear disequilibrium between journals and books. An example of the latter, the Entrepreneurship series coordinated by Montiel and Rodríguez (2016, 2017b, 2018) appears to be the only editorial research systematic effort in Mexico and even Latin America. Topics like the perspective of the university's business incubators managers over their aspiring entrepreneurs; procedural learning in entrepreneurs; the evaluation of creativity in courses as an integrating element in entrepreneurship; a development of a psychological support program for entrepreneurs; a life story of a businessman in a small enterprise; the innovation system and capabilities in a developing region; the link between innovation, collaboration, and export behavior in Mexico; or the role of the entrepreneurial ecosystem also in Mexico are some of the topics in them.
Fig. 1.4. Document Types. Source: Authors' own calculations, according to Social Science Citation Index (2019).
1.4 Discussion
1.4.1 Entrepreneur
Through documentary and descriptive research in relation to the situation of competitiveness in Mexico, some papers try to approach the characteristics of SMEs in Mexico, finding informal nature and the scarce use of technology and administrative models by entrepreneurs (Martínez, Ruiz, & Mapen, 2019), arguing that informal business owners are viable entrepreneurs who do not register into formal economy due to complex regulation and high taxes, while others claim that they are making a living while searching for a job. Bruhn (2013) separates informal business owners and formal business owners and studies the impact of a business registration reform in Mexico on these two categories.
The need for an income is cited by several studies as a primary motive for both formal and informal business start-up activities found in emerging countries. Given the extant literature, it appeared important to determine which motivators were at play in larger Mexican urban centers. According to Robichaud, Cachon, Barragan, Davila, and Lopez (2016) no significant differences were observed between the motives of female as compared to male entrepreneurs from urban Mexico because a majority went into business primarily for economic reasons rather than for intrinsic motives. Knowing that Mexican entrepreneurs are mostly motivated by economic goals should help local governments in designing policies aimed at fostering and facilitating entrepreneurship.
Hybrid entrepreneurs as called in Schulz, Urbig, and Procher (2016) are entrepreneurs who are simultaneously working as paid employees, constituting a systematic and large part of new firm creation. Arguing for the need to consider hybrid entrepreneurs in public policy, they analyze the introduction of one-stop shops for faster and simplified firm registration in Mexico. Findings show that hybrid entrepreneurs are more responsive to changes in entry regulation than full-time entrepreneurs. While both the best and least educated people respond to reforms, the effect is most pronounced for highly educated hybrid entrepreneurs.
Although many studies have analyzed the behavior of high-skilled migration to the United States, few have focused on the escalating migration of Mexican entrepreneurs, and particularly on the determinants (being valuation of opportunities or allocation and reconfiguration of resources, e.g.) of this kind of high-skilled migration, that might be influenced by context issues, for example, the violence era (Montiel, Arambula, & Ordonez, 2012) that spread throughout Mexico, specifically in Juarez, which is right on the border with El Paso, Texas, USA. Salamanca and Alcaraz (2019) address this gap through a qualitative approach conforming to quantitative procedures, b...
