My review of Pattana Kitiarsa’s Monks, Mediums and Amulets has now been published as part of the SIU Journal of Management Special Supplement (http://ejournal.som.siu.ac.th).
Kitiarsa, Pattana, Monks, Mediums, and Amulets:
Thai Popular Buddhism Today, SIU Journal of Management, Vol.3, No.S1
(May, 2013), pp.150-3, available at: http://ejournal.som.siu.ac.th/files/Kitiarsa.pdf.
Walsh, John, “Thailand and the East Asian Economic Model,” Pacific Business Review: A Quarterly Journal of Management, Vol.5, No.10 (April, 2013), pp.81-8, available at: http://pbr.co.in/Vol%205%20Iss%2010/11.pdf.
Abstract:
The East Asian Economic Model (EAEM) focuses closely on the economic aspects by which first Northeast Asian and secondly Southeast Asian nations attained rapid economic growth from the second half of the twentieth century. The EAEM considers the important economic aspects of the process: import-substitution, export-orientation, openness to inward investment and low wage cost competitiveness with an Original Equipment Manufacturing (OEM) approach. This model was officially introduced into official Thai policy as part of the First National Economic Development Plan of 1961. Since then, the Thai economy has developed along parallel lines, with a large subsistence agricultural sector, in addition to repressive acts by authorities, serving to dampen any significant movement towards higher labour costs. This form of the EAEM was quite successful in promoting growth until the 1997 crisis, when its limitations were first thrown into sharp relief. The governments of 2001-6 attempted to create a different trajectory for the economy but this was brought short by a military coup and a stultifying period of junta rule. The economic crisis that emerged around the world in 2008 and is becoming manifested in 2009 in Thailand in major job losses in the manufacturing industry represents a further threat to the value of the EAEM. New competition from Vietnam and China, in particular, make low-labour cost competitiveness no longer a viable strategy. The country has become lodged in what the World Bank calls the Middle Income Trap, in which the means by which a low-income country reaches a middle-income situation cannot be the same means by which the country can move from middle-income to high-income. As a means of exiting this trap, the current Pheu Thai administration has launched a range of measures, including a significant rise in the minimum wage and support for commercial enterprises to add value to their production. It remains to be seen how successful these efforts will prove to be.
Announcing: Chintraruck, Alin and John Walsh, “Water Allocation Issues in Thailand,” paper presented at the 2nd EnvironmentAsia Conference (Pattaya: May 15th-17th, 2013).
Abstract: The allocation of scarce resources has been problematic throughout modern history, particularly in the case of a resource as critical to human existence as water. Grounds for allocation include considerations of ideology, politics and equity. In conditions of increasing uncertainty regarding the supply of water resulting from global climate change and its effects, as well as continuously intensifying demand for water from industrial, agricultural, tourist and residential interests, the means and effectiveness of allocation decisions has become one of the most important decisions that governmental agencies are required to make. This issue is examined through the case study of Thailand, which is a country in a sub-tropical region receiving considerable rainfall during the monsoon season but with enormously elevated levels of demand for water in the contemporary period as the result of industrialization, population increase and the creation of a mass tourism industry. Historically, water allocation has taken place as the result of political contestation between government agencies and the provincial and national levels and private sector organizations and individuals. However, in a changing political and natural environment, new directions and approaches must be explored. This paper introduces new approaches to the issue of water allocation and highlights the changes in thinking required for future decision-making under conditions of greater unpredictability of supply and intensification of demand.
Keywords: industry; resource allocation; scarce resources; tourism; water
Here is the second abstract for the panel:
The gendered division of labour in agricultural households structures the extent and purpose of most decision-making with regards to income generation and household activities. Yet this is a dynamic rather a static situation because farming conditions vary so widely even within comparatively narrow geographical limits, while weather conditions can be unpredictable and, for those households connected with distant markets, market conditions can also affect what must be done at the household level. Additionally, technological change drives much agricultural production. When there is change of this sort, then the possibility is opened of a renegotiation between family members – perhaps on grounds of gender and perhaps on other grounds – as to what inputs are to be used and how any changes in labour provision should be managed. Clearly, where the nature of decision-making in the household changes in one direction, then that makes it possible for power relations to vary in nature in another or many other directions. This research study focuses on the results of 400 quantitative interviews conducted in Cambodia and Thailand of women in rice-farming households. Women as heads of households were identified and interviewed where possible. Variations in input use are shown in different agricultural conditions and implications are drawn from this for understanding the changing nature of gendered relations in different parts of the two countries surveyed.
Keywords: agricultural inputs, Cambodia, decision-making, gender, Thailand
Petcharat Lovichakorntikul, Doctoral Candidate, School of Management, Shinawatra University
Sirirat Ngamsang, Doctoral Candidate, School of Management, Shinawatra University
John Walsh, Assistant Professor, School of Management, Shinawatra University
This is the first of the papers to be presented at the 3rd ICIRD at Chulalongkorn University in November as part of our panel of Uneven Development in the Mekong Region: Infrastructure and Gender Issues.
Abstract:
Water privatization is an emotive subject and one that attracted a bad reputation owing to botched efforts in some western countries that have seen profits rise while services decline and apparently predatory privatization in South Africa and elsewhere that denied water to the poor. Water is widely considered to be a public good that should be available to people at a price as close to zero as possible. A powerful campaign to make access to water a human right has been launched and there is an evident contradiction between human rights and the market-based transactions seemingly required for water treated as a commodity. Yet this contradiction must somehow be resolved because the demand for water is continuously increasing as the result of intensifying industrialization and urbanization and the huge increases in scale of the tourism industry. While demand is rapidly escalating, supply conditions have become much less predictable as the result of the increasingly evident impacts of global climate change. Privatization can have a role in ameliorating these problems if it is properly planned and managed, if the scope of individual projects is limited to the scale issues endemic in management of water resources and, finally, if appropriate governance promotes objectives that are socially beneficial rather than depending entirely on the bottom line. This paper explores the ways in which water privatization has taken place in the south of Thailand from a comparative perspective and evaluates the limits of what can be achieved by these means and also investigates the contours of a successful privatization project.
Keywords: global climate change, industrialization, privatization, Thailand, water
Alin Chintraruck, Doctoral Candidate, School of Management, Shinawatra University
John Walsh, Assistant Professor, School of Management, Shinawatra University
This paper has been accepted for presentation at the forthcoming ICGBE to be held in June this year.
Abstract:
Since its landslide electoral victory in 2011, the incoming Pheu Thai administration under Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra has sought to introduce a radical new economic policy that aims to lead Thailand out of the Middle Income Trap which fastened around the country as a result of the pursuance of low labour-cost export-oriented manufacturing. Policies have included the raising of the minimum wage, construction of infrastructure to promote linkages with neighbouring countries and markets and the encouragement of offshoring of existing low value-added sunset manufacturing facilities. At the same time, the government has had to contend with the hangover of past policies and circumstances, which require trade-offs and compromises to find least worst solutions. A prime example of this has been the rice purchasing programme, which offers a guaranteed price to farmers above the prevailing market price in the hope that a future increase in demand will enable the avoidance of substantial losses. This paper aims to provide an overview of Pheu Thai’s economic policy as a whole to delineate the strategy and logic of the approach, successes and failures to date and prospects for the future.
Keywords: economic policy, infrastructure, Middle Income Trap, Thailand
John Walsh, Shinawatra University
My paper ‘Thailand and the East Asian Economic Model’ has been accepted for publication at Pacific Business Review (for the April issue; the above picture is from the previous edition). Here is the abstract:
The East Asian Economic Model (EAEM) focuses closely on the economic aspects by which first Northeast Asian and secondly Southeast Asian nations attained rapid economic growth from the second half of the twentieth century. The EAEM considers the important economic aspects of the process: import-substitution, export-orientation, openness to inward investment and low wage cost competitiveness with an Original Equipment Manufacturing (OEM) approach. This model was officially introduced into official Thai policy as part of the First National Economic Development Plan of 1961. Since then, the Thai economy has developed along parallel lines, with a large subsistence agricultural sector, in addition to repressive acts by authorities, serving to dampen any significant movement towards higher labour costs. This form of the EAEM was quite successful in promoting growth until the 1997 crisis, when its limitations were first thrown into sharp relief. The governments of 2001-6 attempted to create a different trajectory for the economy but this was brought short by a military coup and a stultifying period of junta rule. The economic crisis that emerged around the world in 2008 and is becoming manifested in 2009 in Thailand in major job losses in the manufacturing industry represents a further threat to the value of the EAEM. New competition from Vietnam and China, in particular, make low-labour cost competitiveness no longer a viable strategy. The country has become lodged in what the World Bank calls the Middle Income Trap, in which the means by which a low-income country reaches a middle-income situation cannot be the same means by which the country can move from middle-income to high-income. As a means of exiting this trap, the current Pheu Thai administration has launched a range of measures, including a significant rise in the minimum wage and support for commercial enterprises to add value to their production. It remains to be seen how successful these efforts will prove to be.
Our paper “The Experience Economy in Thai Hotels and Resort
Clusters: The Role of Authentic Food” has been accepted for publication by Acta Universitatis Danubius Oeconomica and will appear in No.3, 2013 at the end of June. Here is the abstract (in the structured format required):
The Experience Economy in Thai Hotels and Resort Clusters: The Role of Authentic Food
Thanan Apivantanaporn & John Walsh
Abstract
Objectives: This paper explores the relevance of authentic Thai food in contributing to the experience economy in Thai hotels and resort clusters.
Prior Work: Although hotels and other tourist institutions in Thailand have been making some sporadic attempts to incorporate specifically Thai food and beverage (F&B) elements into their overall product offering, this has rarely been attempted in a thoughtful and systematic manner, despite the importance of F&B in determining overall levels of customer satisfaction and the importance attached to incorporating ‘Thainess’ into the hotel and tourism industry.
Approach: This paper draws on qualitative research and personal observation undertaken in a wide range of Thai hotels with a view to identifying emergent value-adding clusters in the domestic hospitality sector.
Results: The paper describes and categorizes the uses of Thai F&B currently and identifies shortcomings in industry vision, which leads to recommendations for both hotel and resort managers and also to those responsible for national level tourism development efforts.
Implications: The paper also recognizes the problematic nature of the concepts of ‘authenticity’ in this context and attempts to reconcile differing conceptions.
Value: The paper contributes to improving the quality and value of Thai hotels in the larger tourism industry.
Keywords: hospitality, Thailand, tourism
JEL Classifications: L83, M31
Accepted for publication in the Journal of Social and Development Studies:
Abstract
Thai female entrepreneurs often establish entrepreneurial ventures as time-sensitive operations that are not necessarily intended to be the principal income generators for a household but act as supplementary sources of income. Such ventures might also provide other secondary benefits, including occupation for migrant women with no other occupation or qualifications, while the flexible nature of their operation can make it possible for operators to combine it with care for children or other dependents. It has also been found that network connections created and maintained by some entrepreneurs, including women, can be mobilized for other mutually advantageous purposes. This research study explored these issues through a questionnaire-based survey of 80 female Thai entrepreneurs. It was shown that the majority of these women started their businesses of their own volition and maintained autonomy over operations. The structure of these businesses is different, therefore, from family-owned businesses which tend and are intended to remain in operation for multiple generations and which have their destiny ultimately controlled by men. Various results of the study are discussed and used to draw conclusions and make recommendations about the management of such businesses in the future.
Reema Thakur and John Walsh
Ms. Reema Thakur is a teaching assistant at the School of Management, Shinawatra University, Bangkok
Dr John Walsh is Assistant Professor at the School of Management, Shinawatra University, Bangkok
Announcing (in chronological order): Walsh, John, “Overview of Health Management in Thailand: The Role of Clinical Governance,” paper presented at the SIU International Conference (January 30-31st, 2013).
Abstract:
The health industry in Thailand is changing in response to the need to provide more low access cost health care to the majority of the population, the aspiration to become an international hub for tourism health care, the need to adjust to the potential flow of professionals across the Southeast Asian region resulting from the projected 2015 ASEAN Economic Community and the restructuring of the labour force as part of the effort to exit from the Middle Income Trap. These changes are nation-wide and require cooperation from a range of ministries and also require the support of society as a whole; that support will result from fostering of social solidarity through, in part, better explanation of why policies are changing and what the objectives will be in the short, medium and long-terms. It is, of course, essential that proper management of quality and health care within involved organizations – i.e. clinical governance – is also fostered and maintained as the highest possible level in both the public and private sectors. In this paper, the various challenges facing long term health management in Thailand are enumerated and the policy options available assessed, before the implications for clinical governance are described and potential solutions and conclusions offered.
Keywords: clinical governance, healthcare, Thailand
