**5. Conclusions**

In this study, the authors built and validated a model that identified which organizational factors and individual skills influence knowledge generation, external acquisition, and internal creation of knowledge. Given the reality that today's economy is largely knowledge-based, there is a substantial need for companies to favor the generation of knowledge. The knowledge generated within the organization is especially valuable because it tends to be unique and specific and have a large tacit component. This is what makes it more difficult to be imitated by competitors, which is a strategic advantage for the company.

Organizations must be able to identify both external and internal knowledge generation activities. The challenge is to build systems that collect the new knowledge acquired during projects and ongoing activities with external partners and, once that value is created inside organization, to capture that knowledge in a database or document and then to spread it throughout the entire organization to be useful for innovation strategies.

Regarding managerial implications, managers have to be able to identify what particular external and internal activities support the knowledge generation process in their organization and what organizational elements and individual skills are crucial. For strategy and growth purposes, organizations are not necessarily locked into internally controlled skills and resources but may draw upon external knowledge (e.g., customers) as sources of new ideas and problem-solving capabilities and for flexibility in the assimilation of new skills and resources [37]. The present study results suggest that a learning-oriented organization is key to generate knowledge to foster innovation. The results also imply that more relevant than the identification of external and internal activities to generate knowledge is the need to develop strategic initiatives that systematically promote this process, with a highly involvement of collaborators.

**29**

provided the original work is properly cited.

\*Address all correspondence to: laura.zapata@tec.mx

© 2019 The Author(s). Licensee IntechOpen. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium,

EGADE Business School, Tecnológico de Monterrey, San Pedro Garza García,

*Knowledge Generation to Foster Innovation in Mexico: How Human Capital Matters*

when organizations believe in learning processes and invest in them.

zations to survive in dynamic and uncertain environments.

knowledge generation activities are.

study environment itself.

**Author details**

Mexico

Laura Zapata-Cantú

Meetings to solve problems and seek solutions or improvements on an ongoing activity or process, attendance at courses or seminars, and the development of appropriate literature to support the development and execution of priority tasks are activities that allow to the generation of knowledge inside firms. This is possible

Regarding public policy implications, the results point out the shortcomings of the educational system will take many years. The average Mexican formal education has only 9 years and few opportunities to get on-the-job training in globally competitive businesses. However, in the short term, Mexico can focus on developing professional skills by upgrading their vocational education, aligning the curricula with employer needs, developing more employer-sponsored training programs, creating rapid training courses, and improving the labor-market match-

Organizations have to include both knowledge generation processes, internal creation and external acquisition, in their strategic planning initiatives. It is new knowledge combined with existent knowledge that will make it possible for organi-

The main limitations of the study are that only Mexican firms have been analyzed and it is not possible to generalize the results to other contexts. Additionally, we have not identified whether organizations participating in the study are Mexican-born or global enterprises operating in Mexico. It could be significant to analyze whether multinationals from other countries operating in Mexico are more committed to learning to innovate than Mexican-born firms and how different their

Future research efforts should also address the way in which generation of knowledge in organizations operating in dynamic environments provides a competitive advantage. We believe that the analysis of our model in other settings may raise the identification of other determinants that facilitate the generation of knowledge and contribute to the achievement of a competitive advantage under the

*DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.86216*

ing mechanisms.
