AN ANALYSIS OF THE THAI AUTOMOTIVE PARTS SMALL-MEDIUM ENTERPRISE (SME) PRODUCTIVITY DEVELOPMENT PROCESS

Abstract

Thailand ranks 12th in the world in vehicle production and first in Southeast Asia. Thailand also hosts over 50% of the world’s top OEM automotive parts suppliers, with approximately 1,800 Tier 2 and Tier 3 auto parts manufacturers’ which are classified as small-medium enterprises (SMEs). Given Thailand’s significant contribution to the global automotive industry, a study was undertaken to determine the effects of the variables' financial factors (FF), supply chain management (SCM), and quality management (QM) on the Thai auto part SME productivity development (PD). Multi-stage cluster sampling was used to select the 402 individuals used in the sample. The research instrument used was a 42 item questionnaire for Part 2’s 5-level Likert type agreement scale questionnaire, whose data were analyzed by use of SPSS Version 23 software and the AMOS module. Study results determined that there were negative influences from Thai organizational culture, as well as the role that SCM can play in smaller SMEs that have no relationship with a large partner. However, the variance of factors influencing Thai auto parts SME productivity development (R²) was determined to be 60.5%. Furthermore, factors influencing a Thai auto part SME PD were FF, SCM, and QM, with values of 0.775, 0.532, and 0.337, respectively.