A Proposed Conceptual Model Relating Knowledge Management and Management of Innovation in a Public Research Organization as a Booster of Competitiveness in Mexico.

• Author: Mejia-Trejo, Juan

INTRODUCTION

Since 1985, the National Council on Science and Technology (CONACYT) has represented more than 25 of the Public Research Organizations (PRO) in Mexico. The main PRO's actions consist of conducting research activities; forming highly specialized human resources, mainly through graduate programs; transferring knowledge to promote the modernization and improvement of productive, public and social sectors; and communicating to society the technical and scientific information derived from the investigations (PRO, 2019). The PROs seek to contribute significantly to Mexico, increasing its levels of productivity and competitiveness and consolidating it as a tool of the State to solve national problems and promote its economic development through its contributions to science, technology, and innovation. (For ease of reading, please see the abbreviations and their descriptions in the appendix).

An example of a PRO mentioned above, Centre for Research and Assistance in Technology and Design of the State of Jalisco, A.C (CIATEJ), founded in 1976, a member of CONACYT, with 1439 clients served up to 2011 (CIATEJ, 2013) emerged with the mission of developing scientific-technological activities, providing technical services, training human resources and transfering technology for the agricultural, food, health and environmental sectors, with emphasis on the innovative application of biotechnology, thereby contributing to the sustainable development of Mexico. As you see, knowledge management (KMG) and management of innovation (MGI) are concepts inherent and principal actors in the CIATEJ process. Vut how are they interacting to get make their clients more competitive?

The question is whether the Key Performance Indicators of the PRO (KPIPRO) are related to the National Competitiveness Model (NCM), which is aimed at all Mexican companies that are PRO's clients and that aspire to the National Quality Award (NQA, 2019). However, it is only in recent years (since 2013) that PROs have implemented KPIs to probe the effectiveness of their research practices and, hence, it is necessary to design the proposed model that involves and explains them.

The proposed model is based in an exploratory effort to collect several indicators involved in the main factors of this research, such as KMG, MGI, KPIPRO of a PRO (CIATEJ) and NCM as clients of CIATEJ. It is divided into problem, hypotheses, and rationale of the study; literature review; methodology; results; conclusions and limitations and future studies.

PROBLEM, QUESTIONS, AND RATIONALE OF THE STUDY

Our problem is described in a research question: What are the main variables of the KMG and MGI that are capable of interacting with the KPIPRO to increase the competitiveness level of the clients based on the NCM during the period of July 2019-July 2020? To solve this, it is necessary to propose a construct based on those four variables. Hence, we have proposed the following specific questions: SQ1: What is the methodology to solve it? SQ2: What are the indicators and variables of the proposed model? and SQ3: What is the scheme involving indicators and variables of the model? The rationale of this study is based on figuring out the level of the PROs results over the clients' competitiveness.

LITERATURE REVIEW

The literature review is based on documents describing the directives in Mexico based on the National Quality Award (NQA, 2019), the National Competitiveness Model (NCM), the directives on Management of Innovation (MGI) published by the European Commission (ECDGE, 2004), a previous CUCEA-CIATEJ work entitled Management Innovation in Nanotechnology Sector. The First Insights in Mexico (Mejia-Trejo et al., 2017), Knowledge Management (KMG) published by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD, 2003), the Plan de Negocio de la Oficina de Transferencia de Conocimiento. CIATEJ, CONACYT(CIATEJ, 2013), denominated in this paper as the Key Performance Indicators of a Public Research Organization (KPIPRO). This is a first effort to conciliate national and international work documents, related to our main variables as constructs for an academic model.

The National Competitiveness Model (NCM)

Competitiveness is the ability and performance of a company, sub-sector or country to sell and supply goods and services in a given market and the ability and performance of other firms, sub-sectors, or countries in the same market (IMCO, 2019; Kotler & Lane, 2006). As a part of the National Quality Award, Mexico (NQA, 2019) has designed its own National Competitiveness Model (NCM, 2018) adopted here in this study, with the following variables shown in Table 1:

The Management of Innovation (MGI)

According to OECD (2005) innovation is "the implementation of a new or significantly improved product (good or service), or process, a new marketing method, or a new organizational method in business practices, workplace organization or external relations." Innovation aims at improving a firm's performance by gaining a competitive advantage.

The competitiveness recognizes the potential of innovation, which is defined as an implementation of a new or significantly improved product (good or service), or process, a new marketing method, or a new organizational method in business practices, workplace organization or external relations and it involves the innovation of product, service, marketing, process, and organization (OECD, 2005). So, the importance of a model for MGI is defined as a set of tools for managers to design and implement with a common understanding of processes and goals for a company. It allows the organization to respond to external or internal opportunities and use its creativity to introduce new ideas, processes, or products (CIATEJ, 2013). By utilizing the set of tools, MGI can trigger and deploy the creative capabilities of the workforce for the continuous development of a company. It is not relegated only to R&D; it involves workers and managers at every level, contributing creatively to a company's product development, manufacturing, and marketing.

Common tools may include brainstorming, virtual prototyping, product lifecycle management, idea management until TRIZ, QFD, Phase-gate model, project management, product line planning, and portfolio management, etc. According to the European Commission Directorate-general for Enterprise (ECDGE, 2004), we have 10 groups of MGI techniques with 43 particular techniques shown in Table 2.

Knowledge Management (KMG)

The Knowledge Management (KM) is the process of creating, sharing, using, and managing the knowledge and information of an organization (Girard & Girard, 2015). It refers to a multidisciplinary approach to achieving organizational objectives by making the best use of knowledge. The KM efforts typically focus on organizational objectives, such as improved performance, competitive advantage, innovation, the sharing of lessons learned, integration, and continuous improvement of the organization (Gupta & Sharma, 2004). Several works of Prusak (Prusak, 2001; Cohen & Prusak, 2001; Davenport & Prusak, 1998; Lesser & Prusak, 2000) have commented that the need for knowledge management practices arose with firm size and that those firms with fewer than 250 employees were less likely to employ these business practices. Hence, the importance of measuring the knowledge mainly, in the business sector. See Table 3.

The Public Research Organization (PRO)

A PRO under research is CIATEJ endorsed by the ISO 9001: Quality Management System Certification ISO 2008 (NMX-CC-9001-IMNC-2008). The value offered by this PRO to its clients and partners is based on the scientific, technological, and service of its staff, which is made up of 151 members: 13 administrative; 7 middle controls; 16 technicians; 17 engineers; 20 technologists; and 78 researchers.

The CIATEJ headquarters is located in the city of Guadalajara, Jalisco, and has regional offices in the cities of Apodaca, Nuevo Leon (Research and Technological Innovation Park, PIITMonterrey); Zapopan, Jalisco (Agave-Tequila Research Center); and Merida, Yucatan (Yucatan Scientific and Technological Park).

The research and development projects carried out in CIATEJ are a fundamental part of the organization's mission, since they represent a mechanism through which, together with the companies in the sectors that it serves, it manages to generate knowledge to obtain innovation in processes and quality products that generate added value. See Table 4.

Since 2013, CIATEJ has Keys Performance Indicators as a PRO (KPIPRO). These are shown in Table 5.

The Office of Transference of Technology and Knowledge (OTTK)

CIATEJ has an office of transference of technology and knowledge (OTTK) with the main objective to offer a portfolio of knowledge transfer services to the internal R&D units; however, it also functions as an external interaction agent with potential buyers of the technologies generated in the CIATEJ with investors, strategic partners, and other members of the innovation system. The OTTK evaluates the technical and commercial feasibility of the internal research projects to strengthen or complement the relevance in their specific markets. Under this perspective, the research results are commercialized in a more effectively and efficiently. The OTTK operates o the organizational structure of CIATEJ, training its human resources, designing its model of technology transfer and knowledge, designing the specialized services that it offers inside and outside of CIATEJ, designing the business model to support its sustainability, and the marketing strategies. The OTTK reports to the CIATEJ Director and is made up of seven people distributed in five areas: attention to the clients; intellectual property; business agreement and legal issues; linking business office; staff (project management office; management of quality office; management office) and external experts...