Revista Gestión I+D (Dec 2018)
A comparative analysis of rural and urban businesses in the state of Mexico, Mexico
Abstract
Micro, small and medium enterprises (MIPyMES) are the main engines that drive many economies around the world, since they are a fundamental part of the economic units and they generate most of the jobs and the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of countries. Rural businesses play an important social role in Mexico, both because of their role as job creators, buffers of social problems and as an instrument of social cohesion and stability. The objective of this research is to identify and describe those business characteristics that have a differentiated behavior in rural and urban businesses through a comparative statistical analysis. The investigation consisted in applying a semi-structured survey to 80 companies belonging to the National Statistical Directorate of Economic Units (DENUE) of the State of Mexico in 2016 and its subsequent analysis, by using an ANOVA of means and chi-square. There are a series of variables that show that rural and urban companies have a heterogeneous behavior, associated to the environment where they are developed. These variables are: administration and management, human capital, financing, access to markets, sector and scale of the company. The variables of seniority, consolidation gap, evolution of partners, breadth of the portfolio of goods and services, employability, sales destinations and market integration did not show statistically significant differences, so they may be considered similar in rural and urban companies. Keywords: administration and management, human capital, financing, access to markets, sector and scale of the company.
