Naraset Niratisayakul, Nopporn Bua-In, Porntip Shoommuangpak
As food industry is the basic industry of Thailand generating the top gross domestic product income of the country, this research aims to explore the approaches to used innovations in the Thai food industry to sustainably enhance competitiveness. The mixed research methods were used. The qualitative research was conducted with the in-depth interview techniques to find factors to develop into a model. The next sequence was the quantitative research collecting data from a sample of 500 people who were entrepreneurs in Thai food industry to develop and analyze the model. Lastly, the qualitative research was conducted with group discussion techniques to verify the validity of the model. The results of the simulation analysis revealed that to be consistent with the empirical data and hypothesis testing results. It was found that the knowledge management aspect directly influenced the information management aspect. It also directly influenced the innovation management and gave direct influence on the competitiveness significantly at the 0.001 level. The innovation management directly influenced competitiveness significantly at the 0.001 level. It could be concluded that the application of innovation to enhance competitiveness should start with knowledge management because knowledge management was an important factor in creating the organizational innovation.