Small business performance in Thailand: key success factors

Abstract

Purpose

This paper investigates how affirmative leadership management styles, market orientation and marketing intelligence drive the performance of small business enterprises in Bangkok, Thailand.

Design/methodology/approach

Small business performance is a formative measurement consisting of financial and marketing metrics. Other constructs are reflective. Some 200 manager-owners of small businesses were interviewed. The authors use structural modeling, partial least squares (PLS).

Research limitations/implications

The data were collected from two of 50 districts in Bangkok. The study is cross-sectional. Performance measures were self-reported.

Practical implications

Building and exercising affirmative leadership skills and behaviors in small business operations is crucial. Small businesses should focus their recruitment on this quality. Affirmative leaders must create and promote a systematic approach to gathering and analyzing market intelligence on customers and competitors and utilize this strategically.

Originality/value

This empirical paper establishes two important mediating roles of market orientation. First, affirmative leadership is necessary to motivate a market-oriented enterprise in its successful performance. Second, marketing intelligence contributes to business performance when it is driven by market orientation.

Citation

Mandhachitara, R. and Allapach, S.(N). (2017), "Small business performance in Thailand: key success factors", Journal of Research in Marketing and Entrepreneurship, Vol. 19 No. 2, pp. 161-181. https://doi.org/10.1108/JRME-06-2016-0018