Determinants of Starting Entrepreneurs through Non Formal Education’s Professional Practice in Hangdong District, Chiangmai Province, Thailand
Determinants of Starting Entrepreneurs through Non Formal Education’s Professional Practice in Hangdong District, Chiangmai Province, Thailand
In Thailand, entrepreneurs have been paid much attention by the government. It is believed that the economy of a country is driven by entrepreneurs. The Thai government’s policy is to encourage people to start their own firms. It has created an environment which entrepreneurs can thrive by supporting people in communities through training via the non-formal education centre (NFE). This study tries to answer 2 research questions; i) What are the characteristics of entrepreneurs who make use of NFE’s curriculum? And ii) What factors drive entrepreneurs to start up their own businesses. The survey was conducted on through 52 entrepreneurs who passed NFE’s curriculum and established their own businesses since 2011 - 2012. Interview and questionnaires were used as tools to collect data. Statistics shows that most entrepreneurs are married men between the ages of 45-50 years old or women between 30 – 50 years old, and most were not university educated. Most of their businesses are micro enterprises and are owned by single entrepreneurs. Pair sample t-testing illustrates that gender, married status, and education level were significantly related to entrepreneur starting up businesses. Furthermore, sizes of the firm, type, form of enterprise, location were also positive contributors. Moreover, Pair sample T-testing indicates that factors driving entrepreneurs running and starting up their own businesses correlated with capital, knowledge which was obtained from NFE, while personal and socio-culture factors were ignored.Key Words: Determinants, Entrepreneur, Thailand, non-formal education, Start up, Business.