The purpose of this paper is double. First, the research about performance measurement (PM) in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) will be analysed in order to know its evolution. Next, the research gaps in the business context of these companies will be identified. This paper presents a systematic literature review of 131 articles of PM in SMEs between 2006 and 2019. A conceptual framework is proposed to characterize the studies according to three factors: (1) purpose of the approach; (2) scope of PM; and (3) business context in which the studies are articulated. The reviewed papers were selected from Scopus and Web of Science databases. For this study, we considered the works conducted in the manufacturing sector, and excluded those that focused on the services sector.The results show that most of the studies are concentrated in the context of individual company, on the other hand networks, clusters, and supply chains have received less attention. The information collected herein identifies research gaps that have not been dealt with in detail and are transformed into guidelines to be dealt with by new future specific works in the domain of PM in SMEs.

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Una propuesta de mejora en el desempeño de la cadena alimentaria de la mora de castilla (Rubus glaucus) que potencialice su productividad sólo puede comenzar desde una línea base o diagnóstico situacional de la calidad de la fruta, donde se identifiquen los principales puntos de mejora. Esta cadena alimentaria identifica cuatro etapas, la cosecha o recolección, poscosecha (almacenamiento y transporte) y comercialización o expendio. El diagnóstico de las etapas comenzó de modo reverso, fue identificado el productor de mayor representatividad y abastecimiento a las comerciantes del punto de expendio. La evaluación de la calidad de la fruta se realizó a través de la caracterización física y química en las cuatro etapas. Se evidenciaron pérdidas de peso o mermas en todas las etapas y ligeros cambios no significativos del color desde rojo azulado tonalidad brillante en la etapa de recolección hasta rojo azulado opaco en la etapa de expendio debido al corto tiempo del ciclo y a las características no climatéricas de la fruta. En todas las etapas ocurrieron cambios significativos en los índices de madurez lo que significó un incremento de azúcares, disminución del pH e incremento de la acidez titulable. Los resultados señalaron que la fruta cambió sus características fisicoquímicas durante las etapas afectando a la productividad de la misma.

Small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) play an important role in the economic growth of a country and of a sector. They seek to be incorporated into permanent productivity and competitiveness dynamics through a cooperation strategy. This article evaluated the application of management practices to horizontal SMEs networks of the dairy sector in Ecuador by following the constructivist methodology. The literature review and exploratory research indicated an understanding of cooperative work in the networks or Milk Collection Centers (MCCs) and identified the need to evaluate performance when applying management practices as an unavoidable element to enhance their operation and development. The construction phase took as reference a model for the evaluation of management practices in cooperation networks and contextualized it to the Ecuadorian environment. In the evaluation phase, three networks were evaluated, from which results and conclusions were obtained. The developed model identified six criteria with which the evaluations of MCCs were made, whose analysis allowed their performance level to be quantified and a proposal of some specific improvement opportunities for this sector and a group of SMEs.