TY - JOUR AB - Purpose The purpose of this paper is to critically analyze the case of selective industrial policies for the automotive industry in Thailand.Design/methodology/approach Founding on previous literature and official government documents, the authors describe the implemented policies, dividing them into four phases according to the main trend they followed. The authors suggest results the policies have or have not reached by analyzing the current state of the sector.Findings The main point is that selective policies implemented in the country were successful in helping the development of the sector as a whole, contributing to the role of Thailand as main actor in the international market. However, such policy initiatives were not able to solve some of the main issues of the automotive sector in the country related to local development, such as the technology dependence on foreign (mainly Japanese) firms and the weakness of local suppliers.Originality/value The authors frame the development of the automotive sector in a twofold perspective: on one hand, the international/exogenous factors and, on the other hand, the role of policy. The authors interpret the effects of selective industrial policy under the lens on both evolution and growth of the sector per se and on the enhancement of local capabilities. The work shows that the results do not go in the same direction. VL - 16 IS - 2 SN - 1746-8809 DO - 10.1108/IJOEM-02-2018-0084 UR - https://doi.org/10.1108/IJOEM-02-2018-0084 AU - Pollio Chiara AU - Rubini Lauretta PY - 2019 Y1 - 2019/01/01 TI - Who drives the automotive sector? Thailand selective policies T2 - International Journal of Emerging Markets PB - Emerald Publishing Limited SP - 370 EP - 390 Y2 - 2024/04/16 ER -