Proceedings | Entrepreneurship area | Year 2016
 

Why Thai Entrepreneurs Expand Abroad

by Kannika Leelapanyalert
  
  the Oxford's 8th Retailing in Asia Conference in Bangkok September

Abstract

Due to an advance of technology, communication and transport, the barriers to international trade have become lower and consequently led to the emergence of global market (Levitt, 1983). This phenomenon allures firms of all kinds of sizes to internationalize by expanding their operations into markets outside their home countries (Ferreira, Eiriz & Soares, 2013). Globalization offers potentials and also stimulates world’s economic activity. Global economy is an opportunity for the firms to exploit bigger and faster-growing foreign market (Root, 1982). As a consequence, the number of firms expanded to foreign countries has been increasing with an aim to search for investment opportunities (Guler & Guillén, 2010). Avoiding severe domestic competition intensifies (Keegan & Green, 2008), lesser lead times for innovation and high cost of new product development (Kumar & Subramaniam, 1997) are also another reasons which urges many firms to enter foreign market in order to diversify their risks (Keegan & Green, 2008), shifting from domestic marketing to global marketing (Malhotra, Ulgado & Agarwal, 2003). This study has three major purpose: (1) to understand the paths of foreign market entry and the factors influence those decision making of entrepreneurs in Thai small-medium enterprises (SMEs), (2) to develop a framework on the influences of Thai entrepreneurs on international market entry decision, and (3) to explore the lesson that can be learnt for practice.