Globalization,Upgrading,and Small Enterprises: A View from Central America

Abstract

This article examines the processes through which small enterprises pursuing an accumulation strategy are inserted into the global economic regime. Our focus on small enterprises in globalization has a dual objective. First, in analytic terms, it suggests that the key question to be addressed concerns the opportunities and threats that globalization produces for this type of enterprise. In this regard, the concept of upgrading proves critical to addressing this question. Second, from a methodological perspective, the approach leads us to adopt a view ‘from below’, i.e., from the position of small enterprises themselves. The analysis is intended to complement rather than to challenge the ‘top-down’ perspectives that characterize studies of globalization, and in which small enterprises tend to be rendered invisible. This study examines two empirical cases: the software sector in Costa Rica and the development of the garment industry in a cluster concentrated in an indigenous community in Guatemala.