Sector In Thailand Research Articles

IMF-related announcements and stock market returns: Evidence from financial and non-financial sectors in Indonesia, Korea, and Thailand

We examine the changes in daily financial sector stock returns in Indonesia, Korea, and Thailand in response to IMF-related news during the Asian crisis and compare them with those in non-financial sectors. We find that news of both program negotiations and approval increased financial sector returns in Indonesia and Korea, whereas only program approval is associated with higher returns in the financial sector in Thailand. Sectors such as cyclical consumer goods and non-cyclical services experienced higher returns in Thailand and Indonesia, while almost all sectors enjoyed higher returns in South Korea. We interpret the empirical results based on the characteristics of corporate governance and industrial development policies in these countries.

Strengthening the Self-Care of Women Working in the Informal Sector: Local Fabric Weaving in Khon Kaen, Thailand (Phase I)

The first phase of this study was undertaken using Participatory Action Research (PAR) to identify the factual situations of fabric-weaving women working in the informal sector in Thailand. The aims were to enhance the mutual understanding of the women and researchers concerning the problems faced by these women and to establish an action plan to address these problems. The participant group consisted of 107 women working in the informal sector from three local villages who voluntarily took part in the study. Data were collected using quantitative and qualitative methods through structured questionnaires, focus groups, in-depth interviews, participant observations, and field notes. The results of the study revealed that the women learned their health problems were related to work and their labor potentially placed them at a risk for illness. When the women realized the gravity of their situation, they attained a sense of empowerment and took the initiative in establishing action plans to address their problems.

Banking technology, technological learning and competition: Comparative case studies in Thai banking

SummaryThis paper focuses on the five major commercial banks in Thailand (Bangkok Bank, Siam Commercial Bank, Thai Farmers Bank (Kasikorn Bank), Krung Thai Bank and Bank of Ayudhya) with regard to strategies in competition in the banking industry. The paper analyses strategy and the adoption of technology against progress of the banking economy. Over the past few decades, the Thai banking structure has changed from mass automation towards smart automation. Improvements in information and communications technology enable the banking community to launch new types of financial services like electronic banking services and mobile banking services. The study explores the ways the banks improve their technological capabilities (their technological learning process to improve the technological capabilities) and the use of technology strategy in the banking sector. The results show that technological innovation in the banking sector of Thailand is not revolutionary but evolutionary.

Least cost electricity generation options based on environmental impact abatement

Abstract The power sector in Thailand is the largest contributor to CO2 emissions. There is high potential to mitigate CO2 emission via alternative power generating plants. Alternative plants considered in this study include nuclear plants, integrated gasification combined cycle plants, biomass-based plants and supercritical thermal power plants. The biomass-based plants considered here are fueled with four types of biomass; paddy husk, municipal solid waste (MSW), fuel wood and corncob. The methodology for the optimal expansion plan of the power generating system over the planning horizon is based on the least-cost approach. The results from the least-cost planning analyses show that the nuclear alternative has the highest potential to mitigate not only CO2 but also other airborne emissions. Moreover, the nuclear option is the most effective abatement strategy for CO2 reduction due to its negative incremental cost of CO2 reduction.

CO 2 mitigation and power generation implications of clean supply-side and demand-side technologies in Thailand

The CO 2 mitigation from the power sector in Thailand can be accomplished through both the technological substitutions in supply-side options, and the reduction of power generation through adoption of demand-side-management options. The traditional power generation expansion planning has focused only on supply-side options. However, in this study both supply-side and demand-side options are simultaneously considered in a long-term integrated resource planning model, to determine the least-cost options. Results of the analyses show that during 2003–2017 the use of efficient demand-side technologies and the efficient power generation technologies would reduce CO 2 emission by 8.4% compared to the base case. When CO 2 reduction targets are introduced, the installed capacity of and generation from clean supply-side technologies are found to increase. The long run average cost in the base case is found to increase from 3.10 to 3.22 US cents/kWh if the target of CO 2 emission reduction by 30% is to be achieved. In addition, the sensitivity analyses are carried out to determine the effect of some parameters on the generation plan.

Benchmarking project management practices of Caribbean organizations using analytic hierarchy process

Effective management of projects is becoming increasingly important for any type of organization to remain competitive in today’s dynamic business environment due to pressure of globalization. The use of benchmarking is widening as a technique for supporting project management. Benchmarking can be described as the search for the best practices, leading to the superior performance of an organization. However, effectiveness of benchmarking depends on the use of tools for collecting and analyzing information and deriving subsequent improvement projects. This study demonstrates how analytic hierarchy process (AHP), a multiple attribute decision‐making technique, can be used for benchmarking project management practices. The entire methodology has been applied to benchmark project management practice of Caribbean public sector organizations with organizations in the Indian petroleum sector, organizations in the infrastructure sector of Thailand and the UK. This study demonstrates the effectiveness of a proposed benchmarking model using AHP, determines problems and issues of Caribbean project management in the public sector and suggests improvement measures for effective project management.

Sectoral dynamics and natural resource management

In order to analyze, understand and prescribe natural resource management strategies, the decision making framework should ideally capture the dynamics of inter-dependency between the economic and ecological systems in an integrated manner. However, the inclusion of two complex systems within a single integrated framework makes many of the present analytical tools redundant. Computational sectoral models on the other hand are ideally suited to meet this challenge. In this paper, I present an integrated sectoral model for the shrimp sector in Thailand. The paper describes how the dynamics of economics and the natural system are captured and the complexity that arises from this integration. Some preliminary results demonstrate how sectoral strategies can change when the environmental costs of sectoral strategies are taken into account during the planning stage.

The Domestic Effects of Tight Monetary Policy in the Wake of Thailand's Financial Crisis

One of the most contentious and important questions remaining about Asia's financial crisis is whether or not the policies advocated by the IMF were excessively severe, causing an unnecessary degree of damage to the domestic economies of Indonesia, South Korea, and Thailand. In Thailand, the country examined in this paper, the conditions for the IMF loan of August 1997 included the Thai government allowing weak financial firms to fail and implementing tight monetary policies. By May of 1998, only thirty-five of Thailand's ninety-one finance/securities companies still operated and four of Thailand's fifteen banks had been taken over by the government. Thailand's remaining banks and finance companies lived under the threat of having their capital written off and management replaced. This paper uses data envelopment analysis (DEA) to find empirical evidence that the resulting reduction of credit affected all sectors of Thailand's economy. The strong and healthy sectors of Thailand's economy were hurt, along with the weak sectors.

Shaping Thailand’s IT future through technology foresight

Technology foresight is becoming an important instrument in the policy‐making process in many countries. But unless foresight studies engage the full spectrum of users and industry sectors, they may never see implementation. In one study of the IT sector in Thailand, a tightly‐knit industry and the active participation of its trade association ensured maximum consultation and the most collective of visions. With a steering committee now monitoring implementation targets to 2010, what the Thai IT industry lacks in size it is making up for in resolution.

The Potential of Waste Heat Thermoelectric Power Generation From Diesel Cycle and Gas Turbine Cogeneration Plants

This study assesses the potential of waste heat thermoelectric power generation for diesel cycle and gas turbine cogeneration in the manufacturing industrial sector in Thailand. To this end, data from more than 27,000 factories from different sectors, namely, chemical product, food processing, oil refining, palm oil mills, petrochemical, pulp and paper rice mills, sugar mills, and textiles, were used. The potential of waste heat thermoelectric power generators was analyzed using an annual cost method based on stack exhaust from a cogeneration system for different operation hours, system life spans, bank interest rates, system prices, maintenance costs, depreciation, internal rates of return, and electricity buy back rates sold to the grid line. Gas turbine and diesel cycle cogeneration systems produced electricity estimated at 33% and 40% of fuel inmput, respectively. The useful waste heat from stack exhaust of cogeneration systems was estimated at 20% for gas turbine and 10% for diesel cycle. The corresponding net power generation is about 100MWe.

An Assessment of Energy Efficiency Programs in Thai Commercial and Industrial Sectors

An assessment of benefits of the implementation of demand-side management (DSM) and energy efficiency programs to the commercial and industrial sectors in Thailand is presented, and the corresponding impacts on power-generation expansion planning and emissions are discussed. The reference building models were simulated to capture energy consumption patterns of the medium and large commercial buildings in Thailand. Nine subsectors in the industrial sector, classified according to the international standard codes, are modeled and analyzed through the technoeconomic approach. Scenarios of the energy efficiency programs in Thailand are applied to the commercial and industrial sectors to investigate the potential of energy savings. Control technologies of airborne emissions from the utilization of fossil fuels in the power sector are also applied. Finally, a least-cost electricity expansion model is used to generate new generation plans. Features of the resultant plans include a significant reduction in the required power capacity addition and airborne emissions of fossil-fired power plants compared to a reference plan.

Reforming the health sector in Thailand: the role of policy actors on the policy stage.

This paper reports on exploratory research carried out into the processes of policy-making, and in particular health sector reform, in the health sector of Thailand. It is one of a set of studies examining health sector reform processes in a number of countries. Though in the period under study (1970-1996) there had been no single health sector reform package in Thailand, there was interest in a number of quarters in the development of such an initiative. It is clear, however, that despite recognition of the need for reform such a policy was far from being formulated, let alone implemented. The research, based on both documentary analysis and interviews, explores the reasons underpinning the failure of the policy process to respond to such a perceived need. The research findings suggest that the policy formation process in Thailand successfully occurs when there is a critical mass of support from strategic interest groups. The relative power of these interest groups is constantly changing. In particular the last two decades has seen a decline in the power of the bureaucratic élites (military and civilian) and a related rise in the power of the economic élites either directly or through their influence on political parties and government. Other critical groups include the media, NGOs and the professions. Informal policy groups are also significant. A number of implications for policy makers operating under such circumstances are drawn.

A Political Ecology of Shrimp Aquaculture in Thailand1

ABSTRACT This paper uses themes from political ecology to develop insights into the billion dollar shrimp aquaculture sector in Thailand. We find that corporations can exercise only limited control over shrimp production and that there is no clear trend toward larger operations. We explain the continued viability of small owner‐operated farms by looking at how shrimp farming is located in physical and social space, and at the ability of owner‐operators to work within the highly unstable socio‐ecological processes of shrimp production. We also find that shrimp farming has induced a spatially‐uneven increase in state territorial regulation. The spatial distribution of regulation is shaped by differences in how landscapes become politicized, and the degree of jurisdictional clarity. We conclude that industry self‐regulation has limited prospects for containing the social and environmental problems of shrimp farming in Thailand, but that expanded state regulation that mobilizes the participation of local people might be effective.

Regional Development in Thailand: Some Observations from the Thai Automotive Industry

The article investigates the location behaviour of firms in the automotive industries in Thailand. Our approach is to use a logit model in order to analyse how the characteristics of the firms and the regions are related to the location decisions of firms in these sectors. The logit results throw some light on the question of the nature of agglomeration behaviour in a developing economy where the national spatial industrial structure is dominated by a single primal city. Our conclusions provide tentative support for a product-cycle argument of industrial concentration and dispersion. 1. Introduction During the 1980s and first half of the 1990s, Thailand has been one of the fastest growing economies in the world (Phongpaichit and Baker 1996). This has been accounted for mainly by the emergence of a large manufacturing (Tambunlertchai 1993) and service sector (Phongpaichit and Chiasakul 1993) base. Although the economy recently suffered a severe recession following a currency devaluation, the previous two decades of growth resulted in an enormous increase in Thailand's industrial development. In spatial terms, this growth had been focused primarily on the metropolitan area of Bangkok and its immediate regions. As the industrial sectors of Thailand began to modernize from the 1960s onwards, the geographical focus of investment, and in particular of foreign investment in the form of joint ventures, was in the area of Bangkok. This provided both the largest domestic market and the point of access for imports and exports. This process of spatially focused investment growth has continued during the more liberalized era of the 1980s and 1990s (Chalamwong 1992), and one consequence of this has been a large migration of labour from the predominantly rural outlying regions (McGee and Greenberg 1992; Krongkaew 1995b). By the end of the 1980s the Bangkok Metropolitan Region (BMR) accounted for 10 per cent of the Thai population, 49 per cent of Thai gross domestic product (GDP), 78 per cent of Thai manufacturing, 66 per cent of financial services and 52 per cent of other services, while average incomes in Bangkok were twice those of the national average (Rigg 1991, p. 157). The result of this high level of regional industrial concentration is that Thailand's distribution of activity is very uneven. Depending on the spatial definition employed,' Bangkok is between twenty-three (Rigg 1991, p. 138) and forty-five (McGee and Greenberg 1992) times larger than the second-order urban area, which is either Nakon Ratchasima or Chiang Mai depending on the definitions used (Kaothien and Webster 1994). This results in one of the most skewed national urban hierarchies of any country2 and some of the world's worst problems of urban congestion (Pianuan et al. 1994; Kidokoro 1992; Hayashi 1996). At the same time as Bangkok has been growing over the last decade, evidence suggests that there has also been something of a gradual decentralization of some types of activities away from the BMR region (Kaothien and Webster 1994; Poapongsakorn 1995; Puntasen and Riefler 1997). This tendency towards decentralization into some of the neighbouring regions is dominated by the manufacturing industry. It is the result of a gradual process in which firms of varying characteristics make a variety of different locational investment decisions over time, depending on the prevailing economic conditions. We investigate this regional industrial restructuring process from a microeconomic standpoint. Our approach involves accounting for the regional locational decisions of individual Thai-based manufacturing firms, in terms of the characteristics both of the regions and the firms themselves at the time when the locational decision was made. By aggregating these individual location decisions over time, it is possible to indicate some of the key factors which have encouraged this process of regional industrial dispersion for different kinds of firms within these sectors. …

The case for government involvement in human resource development: A study of the Thai hotel industry

This paper examines the case for government involvement in human resource development in the hotel industry in developing countries; relates the analysis to the hotel sector in Thailand in order to identify roles of public and private sectors related to inherent human resource problems; and suggests improvements needed in education and training if Thailand's tourism is to compete successfully in international tourism. The outcomes of the study reported here suggest that government involvement in human resource development in Thailand is required because of the absence of a developed and education-conscious private sector. Thailand currently confronts nine major human resource problems. The government is widely perceived to have a responsibility to undertake a supportive role to ensure that basic tourism education and training activities are initiated. The private sector could have a greater involvement in contributing to the development strategy of tourism human resource development. Without strong support by the government, and commitment and co-operation from the industry and education, the development of human resources in the hotel industry in Thailand may be insufficient.

A divisia decomposition analysis of NO x emission intensities for the power sector in Thailand and South Korea

We analyze the effects of changes in the technology-mix, fuel-mix and fuel intensity on NO x emission intensities during 1985–1995. Interfuel substitutions were mainly responsible for observed changes in NO x emission intensities in South Korea, while efficiency improvements in thermal power plants were the major factor in Thailand.

CO2 Mitigation Potential of Efficient Demand-Side Technologies: The Case of Thailand

This study assesses the techno-economic potential of selected demand-side efficient appliances to mitigate CO2 emission from the power sector in Thailand under national, consumer, and utility perspectives. A key finding of this study is that about 5.5–7% of the total annual CO2 emission from the electricity sector of the country can be reduced during 1996–2011 from the national perspective.

Impact of cool-storage air-conditioning on power-system planning in Thailand

An assessment is presented of the impact on system load shape of the application of cool-storage air-conditioning in the commercial sector of Thailand. A computer tool for least-cost planning is used to formulate an alternative power-development plan. Features of the resultant plan include an 8% reduction in the required capacity addition compared to a reference plan.

Helping teachers to cope with large classes

The issues raised by teaching in large classes1 are rarely addressed in pre-service training courses. Those teachers—and they are numerous—who have to cope with classes that contain 50 or more learners are, therefore, often ill-prepared to deal with the situation in which they find themselves in schools. This article examines an in-service training session developed for use in the state sector in Thailand which aims to help teachers to come to terms with some of the problems found in large classes. It is based on the author's previous experience in north-east Thailand, and his continuing involvement there in teacher development work.

Women in Higher Education Management in Thailand

This paper reports on a case study of ten academic women in senior management positions in the higher education sector in Thailand. The study investigates women's perceptions of glass ceiling factors that impede women's career advancement. Issues addressed include: gendered management styles, family and childcare responsibilities, career plans and aspirations, married or single status, and age as a factor mediating women's career mobility. It is argued throughout that the western concept of glass ceiling cannot be taken as a universal explanation of women's career impediments. Rather, research on women's career tracks in higher education must take women's differences, their histories, and cultural locations into analytic account.