Browsing by Author "Amonrat Thoumrungroje"
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    Alternative Modes of Export Entry for SMEs from Emerging Economies
    ( 2013) Amonrat Thoumrungroje
    The primary purpose of this study is to investigate the specific issue of modes of export entry of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) that originate from emerging economies. Four theoretical frameworks on the process of internationalization (i.e. FDI, stage models, network perspective, and organizational capability perspective) are reviewed with respect to the internationalization of SMEs. Direct and indirect exporting are compared based on transaction cost analysis (TCA) and the network perspective. Problems arising from the use of extant independent export intermediaries are highlighted with a recommended remedy. After analyzing the situation and the nature of SMEs from the emerging economies, propositions on alternative modes of export entry for such firms are postulated.
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    The Contingent Role of Customer Orientation and Entrepreneurial Orientation on Product Innovation and Performance
    ( 2013) Amonrat Thoumrungroje ; Racela, Olimpia C.
    This paper synthesizes marketing and entrepreneurship literature and postulates the complementary nature of a customer orientation with that of an entrepreneurial orientation, then explores their relationships with product innovation and performance. A path analysis was used to test the hypotheses based on data collected from a sample of 159 strategic business units in 15 different industries. The results show that an entrepreneurial orientation does not have a relationship with product innovation unless it is coupled with the complementary effect of a customer orientation. This study also indicates that product innovation mediates this complementary effect on new product and firm performance. In addition, a customer orientation is found to exert a direct positive effect on both new product and firm performances. Although most hypotheses were supported, two out of five were not. As such, the findings present valuable practical insights as well as interesting contributions to the theoretical advancements in marketing and entrepreneurship.
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    A cross-cultural examination of the impact of transformation expectations on impulse buying and conspicuous consumption
    ( 2017) Pattana Boonchoo ; Amonrat Thoumrungroje
    Building on expectation states theory, our study proposes a model to investigate cross-cultural differences between eastern (Thai) and western (American) consumers in terms of the relationships between transformation expectations (TEs) and the behaviors of (1) conspicuous consumption and (2) impulse buying. We operationalized TEs as a second-order construct, consisting of four first-order constructs, namely “self-,” “relationship,” “hedonic,” and “efficacy” transformations. Through a sociological lens, we postulated positive relationships between TEs and the two behavioral constructs. By applying multi-group structural equation analyses, we gained support for our hypotheses. The relationships, however, are stronger in the case of Thai consumers. We also discussed the results and provide implications for international marketers.
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    A cross-national study of consumer spending behavior: the impact of social media intensity and materialism
    ( 2018) Amonrat Thoumrungroje
    The ubiquity of Internet, mobile devices, and online social media platform has undeniably altered consumer lifestyles and business conduct globally. To explore the influences of social media on consumer behavior, this study applied the “self-regulation” concept and a cross-cultural conceptualization of “self” to propose a model explicating how social media intensity directly and indirectly—through materialism—impact consumers' credit overuse, conspicuous consumption, and impulse buying. Using data collected from the U.S. and South Korea, social media intensity strongly influences consumer spending in the American sample but has no effect on credit overuse behavior in the South Korean sample.
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    A Cross-Vergence of Consumer Preferences: An Empirical Study of Ethnic Subgroups in Thailand
    ( 2012) Amonrat Thoumrungroje
    Building on Bandura’s (2002) social cognitive theory and Phinney’s (1993) three-stage model of ethnic formation, this study explores the trends towards cross-vergence of consumers’ demand in the globalization era. The results from an exploratory factor analysis aiming to identify the underlying benefits that consumers of three different ethnic subgroups in Thailand have towards a non-ethnic consumer product confirms the crossvergence thesis. Thus, both sociology and psychology literature complements each other in explaining both the convergence and divergence in consumers’ preferences nowadays. Finally, this paper advocates that an in-depth understanding of cultural dynamics is crucial for scholars to advance theories as well as for practitioners to properly address consumers’ needs.
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    Drivers of E-Commerce Continuance Intention: a Comparison cross Baby Boomers, Generations X, Y, and Z in Thailand
    ( 2021) Amonrat Thoumrungroje
    Globalization of trade and investments coupled with advancements in telecommunication and technology have driven growth in international business, particularly e-commerce. Focusing on business-to-consumer (B2C) e-commerce, this study investigates the drivers of post-COVID-19 pandemic e-commerce continuance intention across baby boomers, Generations X, Y, and Z in Thailand. Selfadministered online survey datafrom 851 Thai respondents obtained after the first lockdown were analyzed using multiple-group structural equation modeling. Results show that perceived risks in e-commerce have the strongest negative effect on trust, followed by utilitarian motivations while hedonic motivations only have marginal effect. From the total sample, utilitarian motivations are the most influential driver for continuance intention while trust has the least impact. Within each generation, although hedonic motivations represent the most important driver among baby boomers, utilitarian motivations are the only significant factor in Generation X, and are the most significant across Generations X, Y, and Z with trust being unimportant to Generations X and Y. Proposed relationships are marginally different between Generations X and Z, but not in other pairwise comparisons.
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    Enhancing Export Performance through Proactive Export Market Development Capabilities and ICT Utilization
    ( 2019) Racela, Olimpia C. ; Amonrat Thoumrungroje
    This study examines how exporters from an emerging economy improve their performance by investigating the impact of export market dynamism, information and communication technology (ICT) utilization, and proactive export market development capabilities on export performance. Data from a self-administered mail survey of 239 Thai exporters were analyzed using structural equation modeling. Findings indicate that export market dynamism positively influences utilization of Web 2.0 and ICT network software, along with proactive export market development capabilities, which enhance export performance. However, while ICT network software fosters proactive export market development capabilities, we discovered the unfulfilled potential of Web 2.0 application.
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    Entrepreneurial Strategic Posture, International Diversification, and Firm Performance
    ( 2005) Amonrat Thoumrungroje ; Patriya Tansuhaj
    Building on the entrepreneurship, marketing and strategic management literature, we propose a conceptual model to investigate the effects of entrepreneurial strategic posture (ESP), perceived environmental uncertainty and international diversifi cation strategy on performance. The ESP‐International diversification‐Performance relationship is investigated using a contingency framework. Entrepreneurial strategic posture is postulated to influence the use of international diversifi cation strategy of entrepreneurial firms. Moreover, perceived environmental uncertainty is hypothesized to strengthen the relationship between a firm’s entrepreneurial strategic posture and international diversification strategy, which ultimately affect the firm’s performance. Propositions for further empirical studies are provided in addition to managerial and theoretical contributions.
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    An exploratory study of consumers' attitudes towards ASEAN economic integration
    ( 2013) Panjarat Phumpradab ; Amonrat Thoumrungroje
    This research explores and compares the attitudes towards ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) between Thai and Singaporean citizens. Self-administered questionnaires were used to collect survey data of which 1,462 Thai and 647 Singaporean respondents are usable in this study. The result shows that there is a significant difference in the level of attitudes in supporting AEC between Thais and Singaporeans. By using Univariate ANOVA, we found that age, education, news consumption frequency and most watched TV program explain the differences in the level of attitudes towards AEC among Singaporeans.
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    Foreign subsidiaries’ relational strategic emphasis and performance implications amid environmental turbulence
    ( 2021) Amonrat Thoumrungroje ; Racela, Olimpia C. ; Zhang, Man
    Grounded in strategic choice and resource-based views, this study aims to investigate the antecedents and consequences of relational strategic emphasis of foreign subsidiaries operating in Thailand. Four types of relational strategies were identified with associated differential performance outcomes.
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    Foreign-Branding, Product Evaluations, and Brand Image: An Experiment on Brand Pronunciation in Thailand
    ( 2012) Amonrat Thoumrungroje
    The use of foreign branding has become a popular strategy to employ on local products. A betweensubjects experimental design involving a total of 80 Thai participants was conducted to examine the effects of foreign branding on consumers product evaluations and attitudes toward the brand. Foreign branding was manipulated as English and Thai pronunciation of six fictitious brand names. The results indicate that English pronunciation fostered higher perceptions of product hedonism, regardless of whether the product is actually hedonic, hybrid or utilitarian, suggesting that such foreign branding may offer inherently greater emotional meaning across all product types as compared to Thai brands. Furthermore, English pronunciation created more favorable overall attitudes toward the brand and brand name as compared to the Thai pronunciation across all three product types.
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    Globalization effects and firm performance
    ( 2007) Amonrat Thoumrungroje ; Patriya, Tansuhaj
    This paper advances prior knowledge on globalization and business by empirically investigating how this phenomenon affects firm performance. Building on environment-organization literature, this study explores globalization-performance relationships. The results of the analyses provide considerable support for literature arguing that globalization acts as a two-edged sword, one that can be beneficial and detrimental to business. Therefore, innovative and effective strategies should be designed and implemented to enable firms to capitalize on global market opportunities while carefully managing its inherent threats in order to attain long-term victory in today’s globalized business environment.
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    Handbook of Research Methodology in International Business
    ( 2013) Amonrat Thoumrungroje
    Research has always been a subject that either scares of bores people because it may seem complicated and tedious. However, research is very important because it gives us seemingly objective information necessary for sound decision making. In international business, making wrong managerial or strategic decisions can be extremely costly, thereforce, research becomes particularly essential.
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    The Impact of Transformation Expectations on Conspicuous Consumption: A Cross-Cultural Comparison
    ( 2015-02) Amonrat Thoumrungroje ; Pattana Boonchoo
    Building upon the expectation states theory (EST), we propose a cross-cultural conceptual model to investigate the relationships between five underlying dimensions of transformation expectations and conspicuous consumption. We advocate that (a) consumers who believe they can transform themselves in various aspects through product consumption are more likely to engage in conspicuous consumption, and (b) the relationships between transformation expectations and conspicuous consumption vary across cultures. The delineation of relationships proposed in our framework is provided in addition to suggestions for future research and the major contributions of this paper.
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    The Influence of Social Media Intensity and EWOM on Conspicuous Consumption
    ( 2014) Amonrat Thoumrungroje
    An increasing number of people all around the globe are spending tremendous amounts of time in the cyber world on activities such as connecting with one another and searching for information. It is undeniable that social media, such as social networking sites (e.g. Facebook), micro blogging sites (e.g. Twitter), photo sharing sites (e.g. Instagram), and video sharing sites (e.g. YouTube) play a considerable role in peoples’ daily lives—changing the way people carry out their routines. This widespread consumption of social media has made an impact on the way marketers design their marketing activities, particularly in the promotion and distribution of their products. Grounded in sociology and marketing literature, this paper proposes a model linking the intensity of social media use with consumers’ reliance on electronic word of mouth (EWOM) and their consumption of conspicuous products. Data were collected from Thai consumers that yielded a final usable sample size of 1,142. The results from structural equation modeling reveal both direct and indirect influences (i.e., via EWOM) of social media intensity on conspicuous consumption. Hence, social media and EWOM are effective tools to entice demand for conspicuous products. In sum, this paper extends social network analysis to investigate evolving consumer behavior, and also suggests innovative marketing tools that enable firms to capitalize on advanced communication technologies and to adapt to the new virtual life style.
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    Market orientation, international business relationships and perceived export performance
    ( 2007) Racela, Olimpia C. ; Chawit Chaikittisilpa ; Amonrat Thoumrungroje
    This paper aims at investigating and uncovering the potential effect of exporters’ market orientation upon international business relationship with particular emphases on cooperation, dependence, and relationship distance.
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    The Moderating Roles of Organizational Learning and Strategic Flexibility on Marketing Strategic Change and Business Performance: Evidence from Firms in Thailand
    (Assumption University, 2016-01) Amonrat Thoumrungroje
    Owing to the inconclusive results of prior studies on the strategic change-firm performance relationship, this paper extends the marketing strategy literature by specifically investigating the marketing strategic change phenomenon in a non-Western emerging economy. An emerging market context is of particular interest given that little is known about it while generating half of global GDP based on the IMF's World Economic Outlook in 2014. Unconventional to the existing stream of research, an 'inverted U-shaped' relationship is postulated with a moderating role of 'organizational learning '. A self-administered survey was employed to collect data from different SBUs of 550 firms operating in Thailand. Factor analyses were used to validate the scales while linear- and quadratic regressions, and analysis of covariance were used to analyze data and test hypotheses. This study suggests that organizational learning plays a crucial part in clarifying the association between marketing strategic change and performance. The results also imply that the relationship could be context-specific since some of the findings from Thailand-as an Asian emerging economy-are inconsistent with the theory. The study also reveals that the relationship is inverted U-shape among smaller and older firms whose learning is relatively weak while it is positive and linear among firms with stronger organizational learning. Hence, firm age and size provide an insightful explanation that extends the traditional research stream and mixed research findings in the past. This study extends international marketing strategy literature by empirically testing the hypotheses in an emerging Asian economy. Although some findings are counter-intuitive, they provide insights that further our theoretical understanding about marketing strategic change to both researchers and managers. The research also proposes a non-linear relationship between marketing strategic change and firm performance as well as introduces a moderating role of organizational learning. The findings from this study reveal that the frequency of marketing strategic changes may not always have a positive impact on firm performance due to the level of organizational learning the firms established. Such level of organizational learning also varies based on firm age and size. Therefore, managers need to take into account these firm characteristics before implementing an appropriate number of marketing strategic changes in order to maximize the firm performance. Specifically, how often the firm should add/divest new products and/or new product lines, launch new products to new customers, extent current products to new customers, and add/remove services depends on the firm 's level of learning. When a firm is relatively smaller and older, very frequent and infrequent marketing strategic changes are harmfitl to firm performance because of its relatively weaker learning. Younger and newer firms normally establish higher learning level; therefore, frequent marketing strategic changes tend to improve performance. Keywords: Organizational change, Organization
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    Overcoming Knowledge Stickiness in International Business Simulation Games
    ( 2019) Amonrat Thoumrungroje ; Racela, Olimpia C. ; Asda Chintakananda
    A business simulation game can make learning fun, but what makes it effective in fostering knowledge transfer to the actual work setting? A thematic analysis of qualitative responses from a diverse sample of former participants of an international strategy business simulation game uncovered meaningful pedagogical practices that enable classroom-workplace knowledge transfer of four critical higher-order cognitive skills, namely (1) the ability to articulate, (2) the ability to simplify information, (3) the ability to strategize, and (4) the ability to ‘think out of the box.’