The Role of Leaders in the Operation of Community Enterprises Chiang Mai

Abstract

This research aimed to study identity and socio-economic of community enterprise leaders in Chiang Mai. Secondly, to study the role of leaders in community enterprise management. Then, study the factors related to the role of leaders. Lastly, to study the limitations and suggestions of the community enterprise’s leaders. The study focused on the president, vice-president and secretary of community enterprise. The data were collected by questionnaires from 328 samples then analyzed with descriptive statistics and multiple regression analysis.

The result showed that the mostly samples were male which held the primary education and had marriage status. In addition, their average age were 54 years old and lived in the area for average 46 years. For income aspect, they had the average income from routine work as 12,655 Baht per year, community enterprise as 10,792 Baht per year, the dividend of community enterprise as 8,476 Baht per year and average debt to community enterprise as 24,032 Baht per year. The leaders of community enterprise were usually average appointed for 8 years. Most community enterprise leaders had no experience in leading other groups. The leaders had participated in community enterprise group meeting for two times a year, visited other enterprises once a year and received the information about community enterprises (from all channels) four times per year. The overall of leader’s role in Chiang Mai community enterprise was high level (avg 3.65) as well as the role in structural and leadership (avg 3.64), the management (avg 3.64), develop the learning process for community enterprise member (avg 3.54) and sustainability development (avg 3.92). While the role in network development was fair level (avg 3.47). There were 3 factors related with the role of leaders in community enterprise including the income, the dividend and the meeting participation with significantly at 0.01 level.

            The limitation of the community enterprise leaders included lack of market, lack of online distribution knowledge, lack of modern production technology, inefficient accounting and lack of new product research. Thereby, the involved organization should be participated in community enterprise management to build systematic management and the activity between network should be conducted to learning the knowledge and experience among the groups.