Proceedings of 29th International Business Research Conference
24 - 25 November 2014, Novotel Hotel Sydney Central, Sydney, Australia, ISBN: 978-1-922069-64-1
The Young Entrepreneurial Development Project in Thailand:
The Case of Pongyangkok, Lampang
Natcha Petchdakul* and Suteera Thipviwatpojana**
This research is the community participatory action research (PAR) in “Pongyangkok”, a
small town in Lampang Province of Thailand, using mixed method between quantitative
and qualitative research. The objectives were to study the situation of youth’s problem in
the community including their capability, attitude, needs, and readiness for being the
young entrepreneurs. There were two target populations in this study—the first were 44
youths aged between 15-22 years old, and the second were the community leaders,
owners of the community enterprises, and the youths’ parents.
The research was conducted in the year 2013 by collecting data through questionnaire
survey, focus group, in-depth interview, and community meeting and brainstorming.
Information obtained then was quantitatively analyzed using descriptive statistics such as
mean levels of the youths’ entrepreneurial characteristics.
In-depth qualitative
information was also content analyzed to synthesize the whole picture of new knowledge
obtained from the research together with the research suggestions in order to help
develop these youths to be capable and ready for being young entrepreneurs of their
local community enterprises.
The outcomes showed that even though the problem situation of the youth in
Pongyangkok was not severe since the local governmental sector, parents, community
leaders, and the monks all together have helped oversee and create the appropriate
social activities for the youth. However, the leaders and parents were so worried about
the use of free time of their children, especially, in working for the parents or the
community enterprises since most of the new graduates now prefer to work as the white
collar staff in private companies locally or other provinces. However, the findings from
the youths’ interview and survey also revealed that they were interested in being
entrepreneurs but still lacked of knowledge and skills, especially the risk taking
characteristic which is important for being entrepreneur.
Field of Research: Management
1. Introduction
Nowadays, Thai children and youth are surrounded by temptation and risky for being
convinced to the wrong way due to some inappropriate western culture; therefore, it is
very easy for these children and youth to be lured into the inappropriate environment and
abused. Information from ABAC Poll on April 19th, 2012 revealed almost a million drug
abuses in Thai youth. The same situation took place in Lampang Province, located in the
northern part of Thailand closed to Chiangmai, where materialism has invaded during the
last few years, bringing in some western consumerism culture. For example, during water
festival (Songkran day) in April which is a Thai traditional holiday, there were many
Lampang youths dancing in the western style but more unconscious on the street while
some others drank beer or alcohol during watering other people.
*Dr. Natcha Petchdakul, Department of Management Science, Lampang Rajabhat University, Thailand. Email:
nat_chap@hotmail.com
** Suteera Thipviwatpojana, Lampang Rajabhat University, Thailand.
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Proceedings of 29th International Business Research Conference
24 - 25 November 2014, Novotel Hotel Sydney Central, Sydney, Australia, ISBN: 978-1-922069-64-1
Together with the hard- working parents, having little time to spend with and teach their
children, these youngers conducted wrong behaviours such as school absence, drug
addiction, and etc. If we do nothing, in the long run, these youths will lose their opportunities
to grow up as quality adults. Moreover, the previous survey to discover the communities’
needs for support from the university showed that Tambon Pongyangkok, which is a town in
Lampang, was interesting for conducting this research project due to its active leader and
followers who are willing to cooperate with the governmental sector in developing their
community and wanted to have the project that helps develop the youths to become
entrepreneurs and spend their free time more effectively.
Therefore, this research was aimed to study the situation of youth’s problem in the
community including their capability, attitude, needs, and readiness for being the young
entrepreneurs in Pongyangkok. The outcomes of the study will be used to develop the
youth to become the capable young entrepreneurs for their community enterprises. The
research was conducted to study the situation, problems and obstacles of the local
community enterprises, followed by the survey and interview to obtain the information
regarding youth’s capability, attitude, and needs for being the young entrepreneurs.
The theories and concepts used in this research include entrepreneur and entrepreneurship,
community enterprise, youth and career, in order to develop the reliable and efficient
research method.
2. Literature Review
2.1 Entrepreneurship
Entrepreneurship is the process of starting a business or other organization. It is an
essential element for economic progress as it manifests its fundamental importance in
different ways:
a) by identifying, assessing and exploiting business opportunities;
b) by creating new firms and/or renewing existing ones by making them more dynamic; and
c) by driving the economy forward through innovation, competence, job creation- and by
generally improving the wellbeing of society
The entrepreneur develops a business model, acquires the human and other required
resources, and is fully responsible for its success or failure. According to Bula (2012), the
entrepreneur acts in the static world of equilibrium, where he assesses the most
favorable economic opportunities. The payoff to the entrepreneur is not profits arising
from risk-bearing but instead a wage accruing to a scarce type of labor, the role of the
entrepreneur is separated from that of the capitalist. In his "Principles of Economics,"
the early neo-classical economist, Alfred Marshall, also devoted attention to the
entrepreneur. In addition to the risk bearing and management aspects emphasized by
Cantillon (1959) and Say (1767-1832), Marshall introduced an innovating function of
the entrepreneur by emphasizing that the entrepreneur continuously seeks
opportunities to minimize costs.
There are three basic ideas that explain the appearance of entrepreneurial activity.
The first focuses on the individual, in other words, entrepreneurial action is conceived as a
human attribute, such as the willingness to face uncertainty (Kihlstrom and Laffont, 1979),
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Proceedings of 29th International Business Research Conference
24 - 25 November 2014, Novotel Hotel Sydney Central, Sydney, Australia, ISBN: 978-1-922069-64-1
accepting risks, the need for achievement (McClelland, 1961), which differentiate
entrepreneurs from the rest of society.
The second fundamental idea emphasizes economic, environmental factors that motivate
and enable entrepreneurial activity, such as the dimension of markets, the dynamic of
technological changes (Tushman and Anderson, 1986), the structure of the market –
normative and demographic- (Acs and Audretsch, 1990) or merely the industrial dynamic.
The third factor is linked to the functioning of institutions, culture and societal values. These
approaches are not exclusive (Eckhardt and Shane, 2003), given that entrepreneurial
activity is also a human activity and does not spontaneously occur solely due to the
economic environment or technological, normative or demographic changes.
2.2 Community Enterprises
Community Enterprises are multifunctional organizations engaged in several different kinds
of initiative designed to contribute to local regeneration in a holistic way, and include
democratic governance structures which allow members of the community or constituency
they serve to participate in the management of the organization (Pearce, 2003). This
definition is similar to what Voluntary Action Lochaber (2002) mentioned-- ―a community
enterprise is a non-profit-making organisation which is controlled and run by local people in
the community. It is sustainable in the sense that it manages to raise enough funds through
its activities or through fundraising in order to make ends meet financially.‖
In Thailand, community enterprise means a sustainable commercial enterprise which is
owned and controlled by the local community. It aims to create jobs and related training
opportunities and to encourage local economic activity. Profits are used to create more jobs
and businesses and to generate wealth for the benefit of the community. In addition, it
helps protect and maintain the conventional wisdom of local Thai culture through the
process of co-operation and management among the local people. Also, it creates selfsufficient economy among the enterprise’ members and others surrounded in the
community.
In Pongyangkok, there are a few community enterprises both in official and unofficial format.
The group called ―Coconut shell‖ is the unofficial one that was established by those who are
interested in processing the waste of coconut shell to become gifts such as key chain and
pen holding or home decorates such as mobile, lamp, etc. (see pictures)
Figure 1 Products Processed from Coconut-Shell Waste
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Proceedings of 29th International Business Research Conference
24 - 25 November 2014, Novotel Hotel Sydney Central, Sydney, Australia, ISBN: 978-1-922069-64-1
This group comprises of around 10 people who want to create products to generate
additional income while they can stay at home and having their relatives to help produce the
products. By doing so, children and youth in the community can come to work for them
during free time in exchange for some money. Moreover, many conventional wisdom issues
and stories were told and explained from the adults to these younger during they were
working for the group. Therefore, it is very crucial and useful to conserve this kind of
community enterprise in order for the youth to kill their free time smartly, to help train them
how to work or to become entrepreneur, and to maintain the precious conventional wisdom
of the community.
2.3 Youth and Career
―Youth‖ has the international definition defined by the United Nation as ―People in young age
having 15-25 years old, they are those who connect between children and adults (Wikipedia,
2012) and those who feel worried about their image and the surroundings much much more
than other ages‖ However, the meaning of ―youth‖ in this research refers to the nature and
lifestyle of Tambon Pongyangkok, and since the concept of entrepreneur in this research
needs to be applied in the target youth who were studying in the secondary level or higher,
researchers, therefore, agreed that the youth in this study should be those who aged
between 15-22 years old and were studying in the secondary level, vocational until the
university level.
The Thai Chamber of Commerce together with the Global Entrepreneurship Week Thailand
and their alliances had mentioned in the press release before organizing ―the World
Entrepreneur Week‖ in the year 2012 that ―Thailand and other 123 countries around the
world had emphasized on the social entrepreneurship, technological entrepreneurship,
environmental entrepreneurship,
women entrepreneur, and creative
thinking
entrepreneurship with the target group of new generation entrepreneurs aged below 35
years old including the youth in order to inspire them to have imagination, innovative and
creative thinking, and make the dreams come true.‖
In addition, Thailand Research Fund intended to see Thai youth understand their community
economy by the learning process outside classroom created by research works by
promoting and funding the youth’s community economy research projects. Therefore,
promoting entrepreneurship in youth is very important both at national and international
level.
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Proceedings of 29th International Business Research Conference
24 - 25 November 2014, Novotel Hotel Sydney Central, Sydney, Australia, ISBN: 978-1-922069-64-1
3. The Methodology and Model
This research is the community participatory action research (PAR) using tools such as
questionnaire survey, focus group, in-depth interview, and community meeting and
brainstorming, which emphasize all stakeholders’ and community’s participation. The
research combined both qualitative and quantitative techniques or so called—the mixedmethod research by having the following steps:
1. In-depth interviewing the community leader, community enterprise leaders, and the
youth’s parents to obtain the information about the community enterprise and youth
situation and problems including the solutions upfront.
2. Surveying and interviewing the target youths in the area to assess their capability, attitude,
readiness, and needs to be the young entrepreneurs.
3. Qualitatively and quantitatively data analysis and conclusion to prepare the guidelines for
developing young entrepreneurs together with the local government (Tambon) and
community enterprises.
This research had two main target populations:
1. First, they were the youth aged 15-22 years old, or those who studied in between
secondary school and university including vocational or college and lived in Tambon
Pongyangkok. The reason to target this age group is because the entrepreneurial
concept needs person who already has some knowledge or experience about the real
entrepreneur and can also take responsibility about inventory control or accounting
including cash management.
2. Second, they were those who involved with the community enterprises or businesses,
both from the governmental sector or private sector living in Tambon Pongyangkok.
The information obtained was further analysed both qualitatively and quantitatively. For
quantitative data, the questionnaire survey adapted from the one that assesses the
entrepreneurial characteristics or PEC. All fifty-five questions are divided into 10 aspects
using five-point rating scale. The survey was done in the 44 target youths aged 15-22 years
old living in Tambon Pongyangkok who came to the youth camp at Wat (temple) Toong Bor
Pan. Then, descriptive data analysis was used to identify mean values of various aspects of
the sample’s entrepreneurial characteristics, and the values were ranked according to the
standard set by Best (1981) as the lowest level until the highest level of means.
For qualitative data obtained by various methods such as open-ended questions,
brainstorming, interviewing, focus group, role playing, and observing all the stakeholders
regarding the situation of community enterprises and businesses, the situation of the youth
problems, expectation towards this project by the youths and their parents, and the outcome
they need from the project. All qualitative data then was analysed using content analysis to
synthesize the whole picture and knowledge received from the research including
suggestions and lesson learned which are useful to the community, youth, and also
researchers.
4. The Findings
The results from the research are divided into 3 parts: the field trip to the Office of Tambon
Pongyangkok, the field trip to the youth camp and survey at Wat Toong Bor Pan, and the
field trip to Moo 2 community in Toong Bor Pan village, Tambon Pongyangkok.
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Proceedings of 29th International Business Research Conference
24 - 25 November 2014, Novotel Hotel Sydney Central, Sydney, Australia, ISBN: 978-1-922069-64-1
4.1 The Field Trip to the Office of Tambon Pongyangkok
The researchers went to the governmental office of Tambon Pongyangkok in order to
introduce the objectives of the project and get cooperation and support from the staff for
connecting to the youth network in Tambon Pongyangkok.
The Mayor and his
representatives gave us the information about the youth council in Tambon, which was
founded in order to manage activities involving the youth. There were the committees of
youth who were assigned to handle various activities to train themselves how to work
together systematically. In addition, the representative from Tambon did suggest that since
the target youth in this study had studied in secondary schools or colleges or universities
located far away outside the community, researchers need to conduct the study and arrange
the activities on weekends when the youth came back home.
Figure 2 Researchers Met the Representatives from Tambon Pongyangkok and the
Youth Council
In order to communicate with the youth effectively and efficiently, researchers used
―Facebook‖ which was compatible with the youths’ lifestyle to ask them to think about
products in their community that would be used as the pilot subject to be sold. Moreover,
this social media was also used to make appointment and talk to the youth about being
entrepreneurs. However, the representative form Tambon did warn us that since the youth
in this age started to work part-time, work as trainee, or have their own social activities;
therefore, they might not have time to participate in the project, which was confirmed by the
fact that they did not respond back to researchers at all via the ―Facebook.‖ Therefore,
according to the representative’s suggestion, researchers decided to focus on Toong Bor
Pan Village, located in Moo 2 of Tambon Pongyangkok since there was the energetic and
active leader called ―Poo Yai Bann‖ who was more willing to cooperate with the researchers.
4.2 The Field Trip to the Youth Camp at Wat Toong Bor Pan, Tambon
Pongyangkok
The second field trip to the youth camp at Wat Toong Bor Pan was aimed to seek for the
new youth group and to collect data about their capability, needs, and readiness for being
entrepreneurs. This activity was accommodated by Tambon Pongyangkok who organized
the youth camp at Wat Toong Bor Pan, which allowed the researchers to introduce the
objectives of the project and to ask for the interested youth in this project. This time, there
were 44 youths showed their interest and responded well to the project; therefore, they were
asked to give us their name, address, telephone number, and e-mail address in order for us
to contact back later. Also, the youths were asked to fill out the survey questionnaire and
open-ended questions to discover their capability, needs, and readiness to be young
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Proceedings of 29th International Business Research Conference
24 - 25 November 2014, Novotel Hotel Sydney Central, Sydney, Australia, ISBN: 978-1-922069-64-1
entrepreneurs. The data obtained then would be used to prepare the appropriate content
and format of the learning process for the youth.
Figure 3 The Field Trip to the Youth Camp at Wat Toong Bor Pan, Tambon
Pongyangkok
4.2.1 The Survey Results about the Youth’s Capability, Attitude, Needs,
and Readiness for being Young Entrepreneur in Tambon
Pongyangkok
The questionnaire survey adapted from PEC comprising 55 questions was conducted to
figure out the youth’s capability, attitude, needs, and readiness for being young
entrepreneur. The measurement for these variables were 5-point rating scales ranging from
the least to the most and the target sample were 44 youths joining the camp organized at
Wat Toong Bor Pan, Tambon Pongyangkok. The survey revealed the outcomes as shown
in Table 1
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Proceedings of 29th International Business Research Conference
24 - 25 November 2014, Novotel Hotel Sydney Central, Sydney, Australia, ISBN: 978-1-922069-64-1
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Table 1 Entrepreneurial Characteristics of the Youth (n=44)
Aspects of Entrepreneurial
Average Mean
Level of the
Characteristics
Values*
Means**
Opportunity seeking
3.30
Moderate
Work responsibility and association
3.25
Moderate
Goal setting
3.21
Moderate
Achievement seeking
3.20
Moderate
Self confidence
3.19
Moderate
Information seeking
3.18
Moderate
Planning, following up, and systematic
3.15
Moderate
evaluation
Leading, persuasion, and networking
3.13
Moderate
Quality and efficiency seeking
3.11
Moderate
10
Risk taking
No.
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
2.89
Moderate
*From 5-point rating scale (1=the least; 5=the most)
**Referred to Best (1970)
From fifty-five questions, they were classified into 10 aspects of entrepreneurial
characteristics -- Opportunity seeking, Work responsibility and association, Goal setting,
Achievement seeking, Self confidence, Information seeking, Planning, following up, and
systematic evaluation, Leading, persuasion, and networking, Quality and efficiency seeking,
and Risk taking. Overall, the mean levels of all aspects of entrepreneurial characteristics
were found at the moderate level, which the aspect of ―Opportunity seeking‖ had the highest
mean level of 3.30, showing the youth’s enthusiasm in seeking the new thing for their lives
while ―Risk taking‖ aspect received the lowest score of 2.89.
In order to confirm the above quantitative results and obtain in-depth information, the last
part of the same questionnaire also contained open-ended questions to gain qualitative indepth data according to what the sample thought about. The qualitative results are the
following.
4.2.2 The Youths’ Opinions towards the Meaning of Entrepreneur or
Business Owner
Entrepreneur or the Business Owner is the job controller and commander. He or she owns
the business and has knowledge and capability to conduct the business. Entrepreneur or
the Business Owner is the one who creates and expands the business, is the one who
establishes the business to produce the product for the market or the one who sets up the
trading business. He or she may be the owner of a small community business. He or she is
self-employed, conduct exporting, job commander, product owner, or the person who has
self-motivation and inspiration to initiate something and achieve it. He or she owns business
independently, or follows the dream, or may be rich if the business is successful. He or she
is the big business owner, or the executive who manages the production, or the one who
invests his or her money, or the one who takes care about profit and loss of the business.
In conclusion, from the above meanings of entrepreneur shared by the youth, it shows that
the youth understanding the meaning and the good entrepreneurial characteristics quite
well.
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Proceedings of 29th International Business Research Conference
24 - 25 November 2014, Novotel Hotel Sydney Central, Sydney, Australia, ISBN: 978-1-922069-64-1
4.2.3 Reasons Why the Youths Want to be Entrepreneur or Business
Owner
The youth also told that they want to be entrepreneur or business owner because they want
to show their ability of having their own business, want to gain more experience, to know
how to solve the future problem, want to have income or good profit, and to administer their
work effectively. Some of them want to be self-employed, do not want to have boss, think
that it is independent, or want to be the solely business owner. Some of them said that they
want to be the leader and achieve something, they want to find their own income during
study to help their parents, some want to have self-esteem while other some want to have
good future and see the happy customers from using their products, together with doing
something good for themselves and other people, and want other people see their good
intention to do good thing for the people.
In conclusion, while most of the youths wanted to be entrepreneur or business owner
because they wanted to be self-employed, owned the business, or made profit, some of
them wanted to be entrepreneur because they wanted to help their parents and desired to
see consumers consume their good products, which shows good intention and characteristic
of entrepreneur to be thoughtful about other people and society as well.
4.2.4 Knowledge and Skills Needed by the Youth in order to be Good
Entrepreneur
The target youth accepted that to be good entrepreneur, they need to have responsibility, be
diligent, have entrepreneurial knowledge, marketing and customers’ needs knowledge,
investment knowledge, short-term and long-term business planning method, setting up the
business guidelines, selling and how to talk to customer techniques, cost and profit
calculation techniques, trading knowledge, guidelines of how to be good and successful
entrepreneur, business management knowledge, and successful retailing administration
knowledge.
In conclusion, the sample wanted to learn about conducting business, especially regarding
cost calculation, marketing, selling, and management.
4.2.5 Expectation of the Youth from this Project
From this project, the youth expected that they would gain experience, knowledge, and
capability involving being entrepreneur, creating growth opportunity of business, and
applying in daily life. Moreover, they hoped they could help their parents seeking and saving
money, and have their own career. They also hoped to get suggestion how to start doing
business, how to be successful and gain profit.
Therefore, mostly, the youth wanted to learn and obtain knowledge and experience about
being entrepreneur in order to apply the knowledge in the real life, to have their own
business and income, and to help their parents.
In the big picture, all the above results confirm that most youths understood quite well about
the meaning of entrepreneur. They desired to own the business in order to gain special
income that could help their family and parents. In addition, they needed to have knowledge
and know the steps of being entrepreneur. The knowledge needed also included the
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Proceedings of 29th International Business Research Conference
24 - 25 November 2014, Novotel Hotel Sydney Central, Sydney, Australia, ISBN: 978-1-922069-64-1
concepts of investment, cost and profit calculation, selling and marketing, etc. Moreover,
they expected to get all related knowledge of being good entrepreneur, to obtain real
experience of being entrepreneur, to receive investment fund, and to be able to help their
parents by having special income.
Therefore, in conclusion, it was confirmed that the target youths felt rather highly interested
in being entrepreneur; however, they only had moderate level of entrepreneurial
characteristics, especially the risk-taking one. This might be caused by having young age
and having no self investment fund of the youth. The researchers, hence, needed to
provide them the knowledge and suggestion as guidelines. Moreover, the researchers
needed to be coaches for the youths’ real field work to practice them and provide them the
real experience of being young entrepreneurs.
4.3 The Community in Moo 2, Baan Toong Bor Pan, Pongyangkhok
Students of the researchers who lived in the community were volunteered to work as
research coordinators between the researchers and the community, together with directly
coordination through the community leader (called ―Poo Yai Bann‖) Somsak Teuyot, the
researchers, then, can access into the right community. With assistance from one of our
research team, Mrs.Yuphin Songmaungpeay, our MBA students from the Faculty of
Management Sciences, who lived in this town and worked in the town hall, researchers
organized the community meeting to explain the project and to build community involvement
by talking and discussing ideas with the community leader, the youths’ parents, the owners
of community enterprises and the youth to obtain the information about situation and
problems of the youth and the community enterprises in the village.
In addition, the researchers received the opinion and expectation the community had
towards this project, including their suggestions to improve the project. The opinion from the
discussion suggested that the youth had only a few disciplinary problems such as being not
on time or being absent on an appointment.
The community enterprise or community business of this village has three main groups of
outstanding products, 1) the products processed from coconut shell, 2) the products from
mushroom farming, and 3) the products made from beads. However, in this meeting, there
was only a representative from the coconut-shell product group—―Ante Jan,‖ wife of the
village leader, working as volunteer and the youth leader in the village who used her free
time producing products from coconut–shell waste available in the village. Therefore, the
brainstorming by considering on a reasonable product that the youth could use as a pilot
product to start up and sell it in the simulated business, it was concluded that the products
processed from coconut–shell waste were most appropriate because they were not easy to
be perishable or fragile and with the volunteered mind of Ante Jan, she was happy to lend
the products for using in this project.
At the beginning, Ante Jan revealed that the processed products from coconut shell were
co-produced within the community by adults and young people using their free time with the
budget capital belong to Ante Jan and the money received from community service
employment of the group or from the governmental budget. The group did not have their
own retail shop and the products had no brand. However there were wholesaling by
middlemen from outside the community who came and purchased with large quantity from
Ante Jan but at a low price. For example, a lamp made from coconut shell was sold at only
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Proceedings of 29th International Business Research Conference
24 - 25 November 2014, Novotel Hotel Sydney Central, Sydney, Australia, ISBN: 978-1-922069-64-1
80 baht, however, since coconut shell used as the main raw material was available in the
community and was free of charge, and some other materials were purchased at the very
cheap costs, together with the free cost of labour since all workers produced the products as
volunteered work, the net profit from the product sale then flowed back to the group as
budgeting capital or a stipend to the youth for their help.
Figure 4 The Field Trip to Community in Moo 2, Baan Toong Bor Pan, Pongyangkhok
The community’s expectations from this project were the following: 1) young people could
spend their free time more usefully, 2) they could have chance to learn how to be the real
entrepreneurs, and 3) the community business could generate fund for making more new
products; therefore, people in the community were willing to cooperate in carrying out the
project to be successful.
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Proceedings of 29th International Business Research Conference
24 - 25 November 2014, Novotel Hotel Sydney Central, Sydney, Australia, ISBN: 978-1-922069-64-1
5. Implications
This research told us about the youth problems and situation in the area. Although there
were no serious problems, there was a problem regarding the lacking of community
business successor since the youths had not been mature enough and had no motivation to
run their family business. In the opposite side, after graduation, they tended to prefer
working as employees in companies outside the village. However, most of them would like
to become entrepreneurs. They had positive attitude towards entrepreneurship but lacked
of knowledge, understanding, and confidence to run a business. Therefore, researchers will
use this information to prepare a development plan for the youth in order to coach them to
be capable for being young entrepreneurs in Tambon Pongyangkok in the future.
For the secondary target group, people who involved with the community enterprises or
community businesses both from government agencies and private residents of
Pongyangkok, especially those from the group of coconut-shell products, the results from
discussion within these groups showed that even the processed coconut-shell
entrepreneurs who had run their business for a few years still had not have enough
business knowledge, particularly, new product development, brand building, packaging
development, and marketing management strategies such as retail price setting, seeking
distribution channels, and conducting marketing promotion, etc.
Therefore, the researchers decided to organize a seminar which was integrated between the
research and the community academic service in the form of business knowledge coaching.
Moreover, with assistance from product designing expert under Product Design Department
in Lampang Rajabhat University, the youths were brought to participate in the process of
branding and packaging development for the products. Doing so, the youths could
simultaneously learn and be implanted to realize in and proud of the unique community
products in their surroundings, which would lead to stronger inspiration for them to be the
next generation who pursue their community enterprises later.
Figure 5 The Development Process and Products after Branding and Packaging
Development—Called “Kala Yim” (Smiling Coconut Shell)
After developing the brand and packaging for the products as ―Kala Yim,‖ which means in
Thai as ―Smiling Coconut Shell,‖ both adult and young community entrepreneurs had more
proud and more confidence in their products, and sold them in the retail market during
special events directly to the customers who were the tourists.
At this time, the
entrepreneurs could sell their products at the higher price than the original models, which
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Proceedings of 29th International Business Research Conference
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focused on large quantities with the wholesale price. Therefore, the community not only has
a better living quality but also the higher encouragement and inspiration, especially for the
youths to become young entrepreneurs and carry out the community business in the future.
6. Conclusions and Discussion
Based on the research results and implications as mentioned above, researchers concluded
that the youth in Pongyangkok had positive needs and attitude towards entrepreneurship.
However, they lacked of business knowledge and confidence to become entrepreneurs.
Moreover, the significant knowledge we were shared from getting involve with the
community was the enormous effort community leaders had to preserve the conventional
wisdom of community through creation of the community products such as processed
coconut-shell products to became a symbol of prestige and prominence of the community
even though the leaders had faced a lot of obstructions, they still pursue without fears. The
most interesting and appreciated thing is that, they had tried to get young people to involve
in creating these community products. This action not only trained the youths to spend their
free time usefully but also created the community business successors. Moreover, the
community leaders also used this production activity as a chance to build a tighter
relationship among the generations in the community, which would reduce the gap of each
generation. As a result, community members had opportunities to meet each other and
transfer local culture and community identity to the young people at the same time. This
transfer process was considered as a very efficient one in conserving the local culture and
conventional wisdom of the community.
However, considering back to the point of creating young entrepreneurs, on the business
side, the leaders and the community business owners had highly lacked of related
knowledge. Thus, the researchers agreed that in order to develop the young people to
become the strong and good entrepreneurs, it needs to start with the community leaders
and the business owners. After these people are strong and capable with enough business
knowledge, they will be the mentors nurturing and training their young people to be the
skilled entrepreneurs sustainably. According to the training seminar and discussion,
including marketing and product development knowledge, the community were highly
satisfied and would be able to apply the knowledge to further productions. Moreover,
branding and packaging development for their products were considered as an innovation
that could be applied to other community products such as processed mushroom. This will
add more marketing value to the products, which in turn can bring back more profit and lift
up quality of life for the community.
For further action and research, researchers will bring the youth to the fieldwork—real
community market to practice being young entrepreneurs. At that time, the young people
will learn about trading from the beginning such as how to select the products to meet with
consumers’ needs, how to consider the appropriate location to open the shop, accounting
and inventory working, selling and promoting the products, etc. until concluding the profit
and problems and lesson learned.
Further study in the adult group should be done regarding their entrepreneurial capability
development in order to encourage the people to follow and achieve their intention towards
the community products, which in turn the community businesses can be run successfully
and continuously by their successors, and the conventional wisdom with local identity can
also be preserved and transferred to the next generation at the same time.
13
Proceedings of 29th International Business Research Conference
24 - 25 November 2014, Novotel Hotel Sydney Central, Sydney, Australia, ISBN: 978-1-922069-64-1
End Notes
This research was co-funded by Thailand Research Fund and Lampang Rajabhat
University.
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