Policy Recommendations to Enhance the Competitive Capacity of Thai Health and Beauty Enterprises in the ASEAN Arena
Article Sidebar
Main Article Content
Abstract
The research article aims to study (1) examine the levels of government policies, government support, organizational innovation, brand equity, and competitive organization of Thai entrepreneurs, (2) study the influence of government policies, government support, organizational innovation and brand equity on competitive organization of Thai entrepreneurs and (3) develop policy recommendations to enhance the competitiveness of Thai health and beauty businesses in the ASEAN market. A mixed-methods research design was employed. The quantitative phase collected data through questionnaires from 440 executives of health and beauty businesses registered with the Department of Health Service Support in Thailand. Statistical analyses included mean, standard deviation, and structural equation modeling. The qualitative research involved in-depth interviews with 15 experts, and the data was analyzed using content analysis techniques.
Findings are as follows: (1) The competitiveness of Thai entrepreneurs, organizational innovation, government policies, government support, and brand equity, all at a high level. (M = 4.38, 4.36, 4.33, 4.14, 3.95) (2) Government support organizational innovation, government policies, and brand equity, had influence on competitiveness, with a coefficient of influence of .97, .86, .67, and .41, respectively. (3) The policy recommendations to enhance the competitiveness of Thai health and beauty businesses in the ASEAN arena include the following: promote organizational innovation, improve and develop government policies that facilitate the expansion of businesses abroad, create a supportive government system to strengthen businesses, develop and enhance brand equity and develop networks and cooperation between businesses in ASEAN.
Article Details
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Academic articles, research articles, and book reviews in the Ph.D. in Social Sciences Journal are author’s opinions, and not the publisher’s, and is not the responsibility of the Ph.D. in Social Sciences Journal Philosophy Association, Ramkhamhaeng University. (In the case that research is done on human, the researcher has to be trained in Ethics for Doing Research on Human Training and has to produce the evidence of the training).
References
Aaker, D. A. (1991). Managing brand equity: Capitalizing on the value of a brand name. Free Press.
ASEAN Now. (2025). Thailand poised to gain from surge in medical tourism. https://aseannow.com/topic/1337232-thailand-poised-to-gain-from-surge-in-medical-tourism/
Bangkok Bank. (2025). Growth opportunities for health & wellness businesses as the new generation turns more attention to health and beauty. https://www.bangkokbanksme.com/sme-insights/mega-trends/smeseries-health-and-wellness (in Thai)
Browne, M. W., & Cudeck, R. (1993). Alternative ways of assessing model fit. In K. A. Bollen & J. S. Long (Eds.), Testing structural equation models (pp. 136–162). Sage.
Diamantopoulos, A., & Siguaw, J. A. (2000). Introducing LISREL. Sage.
Eniola, A. A., & Entebang, H. (2015). SME firm performance-financial innovation and challenges. Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, 195, 334–342.
Ferdinand, M., & Ciptono, W. S. (2022). Indonesia’s cosmetics industry attractiveness, competitiveness and critical success factor analysis. Jurnal Manajemen Teori dan Terapan, 15(2), 209–223.
Firmanto, A. B., Wibisono, D., Siallagan, M. P. S., & Mubarok, M. Z. (2025). A strategic evaluation of Indonesia’s policy on mineral value addition. Mineral Economics, 38(2), 287–318.
Grand View Research. (2025). Thailand aesthetic medicine market size, share & trends analysis report by procedure type (invasive, non-invasive), by end-use (hospitals, clinics & aesthetic centers), and segment forecasts, 2024-2030. https://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/thailand-aesthetic-medicine-market-report
Henao-García, E. A., & Cardona Montoya, R. A. (2024). Management innovation and its relation to innovation outcomes and firm performance: A systematic literature review and future research agenda. European Journal of Innovation Management, 27(8), 2393–2418.
Italian Trade Agency. (2025). Thailand beauty and personal care industry report. https://www.ice.it/en/sites/default/files/inline-files/beauty-and-personal-care-industry-2024-.pdf
Ketwichit, T., Wingwon, B., & Saeng-asapaviriya, J. (2018). Entrepreneurial factors, government support, system management effectiveness, and competition affecting the success of e-commerce business. Yala Rajabhat University Journal, 13(1), 151–159. (in Thai)
Kline, R. B. (2023). Principles and practice of structural equation modeling (5th ed.). Guilford Press.
Kohpaiboon, A. (2025). Is the growth of Thailand’s medical tourism industry sustainable? https://fulcrum.sg/is-the-growth-of-thailands-medical-tourism-industry-sustainable/
Kotler, P., & Keller, K. L. (2012). Marketing management (14th ed.). Pearson.
Liang, Y., Wen, H., Nie, Y., Jiang, Y., Jin, M., Song, D., Pan, S., & Wen, Q. (2024). Foundation models for time series analysis: A tutorial and survey. In Proceedings of the 30th ACM SIGKDD Conference on Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining (pp. 6555–6565). Association for Computing Machinery.
Mueller, R. O. (2012). Basic principles of structural equation modeling: An introduction to LISREL and EQS. Springer Science & Business Media.
Nilapun, M. (2015). Educational research methods (9th ed.). Silpakorn University Press. (in Thai)
Panitsettakorn, W., Ongkunaruk, P., & Leingpibul, T. (2023). The present state of the cosmetics supply chain in Thailand and the prospective role of independent quality assurance verifiers (IQAVs) within the supply chain. Heliyon, 9(10), e20892.
Porter, M. E. (1990). The competitive advantage of nations. Free Press.
Potrafke, N. (2018). Government ideology and economic policy-making in the United States: A survey. Public Choice, 174(1), 145–207.
Rehman, F. U., & Prokop, V. (2023). Interplay in management practices, innovation, business environment, degree of competition and environmental policies: A comparative study. Business Process Management Journal, 29(3), 858–892.
Roblek, V., Dimovski, V., Mesko, M., & Peterlin, J. (2022). Evolution of organisational agility: A bibliometric study. Kybernetes, 51(13), 119–137.
Srisa-ard, B. (2017). Introduction to research (10th ed.). Suweeriyasan. (in Thai)
Teece, D. J., Pisano, G., & Shuen, A. (1997). Dynamic capabilities and strategic management. Strategic Management Journal, 18(7), 509–533.
Thailand Consumers Council. (2025). Pushing 4 strict measures to elevate safety standards in beauty clinics. https://www.tcc.or.th/beauty-clinic-substandard-2/?utm (in Thai)
Zakaria, M. H., Awang, M. D., Fee, L. Y., Razak, R. R. A., Ismail, M. M., & Ghani, S. A. (2024). Public-private partnership strategy in increasing competitiveness advantage of Malaysia’s halal cosmetic and personal care industry. International Journal of Religion, 5(8), 539–556.
Zeng, Y., Harncharnchai, A., & Saeheaw, T. (2021). Customer knowledge management framework for SME herbal cosmetics using social media strategy. In 2021 Joint International Conference on Digital Arts, Media and Technology with ECTI Northern Section Conference on Electrical, Electronics, Computer and Telecommunication Engineering (pp. 79–84). IEEE.
