Mentoring-Driven Innovation: Empowering MSME Entrepreneurship through Integrated Business Mentoring and Frugal Innovation in Semi-Urban Areas
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.47747/fmiic.v1i3.3567Abstract
Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) in semi-urban areas are acknowledged economic drivers, yet they continue to face structural barriers that prevent innovation and sustainable growth. This study investigates how the integration of business mentoring and marketing innovation strategies encourage entrepreneurial transformation among informal microenterprises. Build upon a qualitative descriptive design, the research involved 10 MSME participants across a structures Four-Phase Innovation Mentoring Cycle, including diagnostic assessment, tailored education, field-based innovation implementation, and reflective evaluation. The findings demonstrate that contextualized mentoring, when deliberately oriented toward innovation adoption, enables entrepreneurs to develop novel business identities, embrace digital marketing tools, redesign product presentation, and shift from reactive to proactive business behaviors. These changes constitute a form of grassroots or frugal innovation: iterative, low-cost, context-driven micro-innovations that generate meaningful competitive advantage within resource-constrained settings. The study contributes a replicable innovation-mentoring model for MSME development, grounded in entrepreneurship theory, mentorship theory, the resource-based view (RBV), and community-based enterprise (CBE) perspectives. Theoretical and practical implications for innovation-oriented MSME policy are discussed.
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