Predicting success and failure factors of Thai start-ups: An empirical study of start-up success and its determinants in Thailand

• Main Author: LIMPAMONT, Ajjaree
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 2022
• Subjects: Innovation; start-up success factor; start-ups; Thailand; Asian Studies; Entrepreneurial and Small Business Operations; Operations and Supply Chain Management
• Online Access: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/etd_coll/438; https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/context/etd_coll/article/1429/viewcontent/Dissertation_Start_up_Success_Factor__Ajjaree___2022.pdf
• Institution: Singapore Management University

Innovation is crucial to economic growth in both developed and emerging countries across the world. Its benefits creates impact on individuals, corporate and government stakeholders in improving quality of lives, increasing income levels and boost up economics. While innovations are important, where, and how they are best conceived of, managed, executed, and brought to the society has been of great debate and has attracted a great deal of scholarly inquiry. There have been numerous research findings discussing the wisdom and impact of each of these pathways. While the business start-up is an effective organizational form for harnessing resources and creating value. The start-up has been the unit of analysis in many studies on innovation and corporate success. It is the form of firm which brings innovations through the entire process from ideation to commercialization and viewed as a driving engine of innovation and value creation. They are effective change agents for society, which is why they are so vital to the success of a nation. In this research, we focus on the start-up firm as a vehicle for innovation and how the start-up process can be best designed, planned and executed to ensure the proper utilization of resources to create the greatest innovation impact and value in the setting of Thailand. Its aim is to better understand the critical factors that lead to success or failure of start-ups. A mixed method approach was applied in this research. Study 1 was a series of semi-structured, exploratory, in-depth interviews which were executed to confirm the potential validity of the hypothesized model. Study 2 consisted of a questionnaire which was developed and executed via an online survey to collect data across a broad sample of start-ups in Thailand. This study identified three major constructs that show promise as predictors of start-up success or failure, namely, company formation, the potential solutions and the ecosystem within which the start-up resides. Perceived growth of start-ups and the start-up’s ability to attain successful funding were selected as success indicators of Thai start-ups. There were five significant findings from this study. The predictors of start-up success or failure seem to have differing impacts on the perceived growth of start-ups and their ability to attain successful funding. 1) Growth and funding success might not be equivalent. Start-ups which receive funding might not have high growth, likewise start-ups with high growth might not be able to attain successful funding. 2) The radicalness level of innovation may be a double edge sword. That is, a higher degree of radical innovation seems to attract more funding. Nevertheless, it appears that the more radical the innovation, the harder it is to execute on, resulting in slow growth of start-ups. 3) Company formation and solutions could be important predictors to the perceived growth of start-up ventures. 4) Founder business network helps accelerate growth and expand funding opportunities. The network allows access to critical resources, technology, market, and regulators with higher opportunity to receive funding. 5) Talent acquisition capability is a driving force for sustainable growth in start-ups. Successful start-ups exhibit competencies recruiting, utilizing, developing, retaining, and dismissing such desired talents. The findings of this study are intended to serve as a practical guide for start-ups, entrepreneurs, innovators, and stakeholders in Thailand and begin to shed light on potential future areas of management research. The theoretical contributions of this study are intended to benefit researchers who wish to understand the landscape of start-up ventures in Thailand. While conducted in Thailand and focused on Thailand based start-ups the results are hoped to be generalizable to other geographies and societies, especially in developing countries.