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This paper aims to analyze the characteristics of Brazilian micro and small businesses (MSBs) and the main lessons derived from the largest small business innovation support program in the country, the Local Innovation Agents – Agentes Locais de Inovação (ALI) Program.

In total, 34 papers were selected from the Web of Science and Scopus databases (28), as well as from the Revista de Administração e Inovação – RAI (6), a seminal Brazilian innovation journal. The papers were analyzed in terms of the regional context, methodological approach and main findings. Regional complementary analyzes of some program figures were also performed by Spearman correlation and Wilcoxon signed-rank tests.

The review revealed a low innovation level among Brazilian MSBs and that the platform (incremental product) and brand (marketing) innovation dimensions were the most developed across different regions and industries. Reviewed papers also showed that all MSBs were able to improve innovation over the program independent of previous management and innovation levels, besides positive relationships between management and innovation. The complementary analysis provided a regional panorama of the program figures and corroborated MSBs innovation improvement.

This review analyzed relevant papers and figures related to the program, summarized main lessons and provided future research venues.

Different innovation strategies reviewed may be implemented by MSBs owners. Policymakers may also benefit from the program experience.

Despite the high number of publications and the relevance of the largest Brazilian innovation support program, there were still no literature reviews comprehending the diverse lessons derived from the ALI Program, as well as a regional panorama of the program figures.

This research aims to analyze the relations between coopetition and innovation, by comparing two coopetitive tourism SMEs networks in Brazil.

The first network comprises 23 SMEs in Honey Island, a natural reserve, and the second network comprises 21 out of 25 SMEs in the Campos Gerais region, recognized by its strong agribusiness. Innovativeness variables included innovation inputs, capabilities, and outputs; and four types of relations that foster innovation were considered, namely, commercial, informational, knowledge, and partnerships. Social network analysis was employed as well as statistical analyses such as Kolmogorov–Smirnov, Mann–Whitney, Spearman correlation and Fischer's Z transformation.

Results show that coopetition is related to SMEs innovativeness. Commercial relations centralities correlated with many innovation outputs, information and knowledge centralities with some innovation inputs and outputs, and partnerships also with capabilities.

Besides contributing to the literature of innovation in tourism, this paper also contributes to the literature on coopetition and innovation by investigating how different types of coopetition relationships foster innovation inputs, capabilities, and outputs.

Managers may benefit from these findings by fostering specific innovation inputs, capabilities, or outputs by means of different coopetition relations. Similarly, regional tourism policy planners may also improve the innovativeness of tourism small businesses by fostering coopetition networks.

This paper not only compares the innovativeness of two small business coopetition networks in the tourism industry but also analyses quantitively in detail how different types of coopetition relations are related to different innovativeness variables.

This study aims to analyse design management as a dynamic capability.

This is a systematic review with paper searches conducted on the ISI Web of Science database’s Social Sciences Citation Index, complemented by a historiographical analysis developed using the HistCite software.

The analysis of paper allowed for the identification of three processes that, if integrated, construct design management as a dynamic capability, namely, design learning, design coordination and design skills. Design learning corresponds to the skill of acquiring and absorbing knowledge and practices and spreading them throughout the whole organisation, and design coordination corresponds to the capability to coordinate the activities and practices that are necessary for good design. Finally, design skills comprise a set of techniques and knowledge that generate synergy, creativity and innovation.

This perspective suggests a new concept of design management that allows organisations to achieve a competitive advantage in environments of rapid technological change.

This study contributes to the literature on design management as a dynamic capability. Another contribution is that design management presents itself as an important dynamic that is capable of creating and maintaining a competitive edge through its potential to generate innovation and creativity and to make firms more flexible and dynamic.