Leadership as a Mediator of Learning Organization, Technology and Innovation Influencing Competitiveness of Thai Exporting Business

The purpose of this mixed methods research was to examine the role of leadership in transmitting influence of learning organization, technology and innovation on competitiveness of Thai exporting business. A structured and tested questionnaire was used as an instrument in quantitative research. The samples were 110 exporting firms that were randomly selected through stratified random sampling from 1,723 Thai exporting firms. The result showed that leadership played partial mediation in transmitting function. It was also revealed that leadership had direct effects on competitiveness of the firms. Technology and innovation were essential antecedents of competitiveness as they both left high direct effect and indirect effect on such outcome variable. All respondents valued learning efforts and had attempted to become learning organizations, so as to strengthen competitive advantages. Modern technology and innovation were also essential for business survival. Other hidden variables addressed by key informants through in-depth interviews came to light during this study for further investigation were: organizational culture, social capital, corporate social responsibility (CSR), and life-long education.