Author(s): Thitima Onprasirt, Nilawan Sawangrat, Taweesak Roopsing
Aim: The purposes of this research were: 1) to study the structural and operational features of rubber business organizations, 2) to study the components of a structural equation model of guidelines for sustainability in rubber processing, and 3) to improve the structural equation model (SEM) of a structural equation model of guidelines for sustainability in rubber processing.
This research was an inductive research with mixed-methodology research including the qualitative research through in-depth interview and the quantitative research by collecting the quantitative data from the rubber industrial business executives of 500 workplaces divided into large enterprises, and small and medium enterprises to analyze and improve the structural equation model (SEM). And finally, the structural equation model was fit and in accordance with empirical data.
Finding: The results of the research revealed that guidelines for managing rubber processing into competition for sustainable existence consisted of four main factors: resources, organization management, innovation, and market orientation. Each of the factors has the highest point average as follows: management, i.e., authorization and management of each department to achieve the assigned plans and goals; resources, i.e., recruitment process of hiring employees with knowledge and skills of rubber processing; market orientation, i.e., manufacturing goods in accordance with the current customer behavior and trends; and innovation, i.e., promotion of learning organization to crystalize the knowledge and skills of rubber processing with low costs and create the consistent innovation. The large enterprises and small and medium enterprises focused on the guidelines for rubber processing to remain sustainable at statistical significance level of 0.05.
Conclusion: This research could be concluded that the structural equation model analysis was proved by congruence evaluation criteria including Chi-square probability of 0.069, relative Chi-square of 1.120, index of item objective congruence of 0.949, and root mean square error of approximation of 0.015.