ارتباط دانشگاه و صنعت و توسعه اقتصادی: مورد تایلند

This article analyzes university–industry linkages (UILs) in Thailand at the national level and in four sectors (automotive, textiles–garments, agro-industry, and electronics). Public officials and firm managers recognize the importance of UILs for meeting challenges facing Thai producers. But with interesting exceptions, Thai UILs are frail. This is due to protection and low levels of innovation resulting in few private sector efforts to link up with universities; rigid structures and weak incentives in the Thai universities discouraging ties with business; and generally fragmented Thai bureaucracy. Underlying these obstacles is inconsistent support for UILs on the part of political leaders.

This paper explores university–industry linkages (UILs)—or more specifically, linkages between industry and advanced educational institutions—in Thailand. Because they are key components in the country’s national innovation system (NIS), UILs can help Thai producers to “initiate, import, modify and diffuse technology” (Freeman, 1987, p. 1). As such, their importance has grown: Thailand’s needs for technological competences have become more pressing as the country loses its cheap labor advantage and confronts new competitive pressures. This section summarizes our key findings, explores their implications for Thai development as the country confronts more competitive challenges, and introduces the rest of the paper.

Another factor inhibiting private sector activity is the relative lack of cohesion within and among sectors. One finds relatively few encompassing associations able to reconcile, for example, the interests of sugar millers and growers, or of spinners, weavers, dyers, and garment producers. Further, associational activity has traditionally focused on lobbying for specific policies and protection rather than promoting collective goods devoted to efficiency improvement. Productivity-oriented associational activities tend to occur largely where local firms are under competitive pressure and where political leaders see the fate of the industry as strategic, as has been the case in both for Thai rice and garments (Anek, 1991 and Christensen, 1993). In other words, as demonstrated by cross-national research, private sector collective action typically requires public sector support (Doner & Schneider, 2000). Under these conditions, it is not surprising that effective Thai UILs up to now have been those undertaken by large firms—large garment exporters, Seagate in hard disk drives, and the CP Group in shrimps. Further, the vulnerability of the shrimp industry, combined with its tremendous foreign exchange earning capacity, the weakness of shrimp farmers, and the CP group’s political leverage, have meant that it is in shrimps that such linkages are the strongest. We suspect that when and if sugar is exposed to similarly dire threats, greater UIL initiatives will be made by large sugar millers. (One may also begin to see such efforts as sugar millers seek alternative uses for cane, e.g., energy-cogeneration, paper, and ethanol.)