An Examination of the determinants of entrepreneurship in Thai high technology start-ups

Abstract

This study advances understanding of the complexity of sustaining growth in high technology-based businesses. The study builds on the conceptual and applied insights on business growth from the entrepreneurship literatures to develop a model. The model is developed to investigate the impact of determinants subsumed under the three key-based factors, entrepreneurship, innovation and firm growth dynamics on the firms’ innovative entrepreneurial activities that might lead to enhanced economic growth This thesis uses both qualitative and quantitative methods to describe the determinants and test the relationships. The quantitative survey collected data from 521 young Thai start-ups. The qualitative study involved interviews with the CEO/owners of seven high-tech firms in Thailand. The quantitative and qualitative evidence from these firms led to a much stronger explanation of the performance of the high-tech sample. This thesis has significant theoretical and practical implications. From a theoretical viewpoint, this study provides detailed evaluation on the growth determinants from a developing country perspective. The results shown that the young high-technology firms in Thailand were similar to firms that had been examined in the literature with regard to their characteristics, innovation and firm growth dynamics but differed with regard to the utilisation of the key firm based factors subsumed under the three key-based factors, entrepreneurship, innovation and firm growth dynamics. From a practical viewpoint, these findings indicate that the competitiveness of young technology-based firms can be enhanced by developing critical capabilities to assist the right strategies for better performance. The thesis provides important new insights into this group of firms in a developing country. The analysis of the empirical and qualitative results showed the role and impacts of the determinants on the firms’ sustainable growth and highlighted the importance of the managerial ability to dynamically manipulate these key firm based determinants to sustain growth.