"Marriage is like an elephant-- the husband is the front legs that choose the direction, the wife the back legs, providing the power!" – Thai Legend
Introduction
The Thai legend above illustrates the important yet veiled role of women in Thai society. Women comprise 46% of the labour force, 26% of senior officials, legislators and managers (UNDP, 2006), and nearly 50% of the entrepreneurs (Minniti, Allen & Langowitz, 2006) in Thailand. Most of these women are running small companies, but a handful head large, growth-oriented entrepreneurial firms. In this chapter, we profile four leading Thai women who have been recognized with the highly prestigious "Leading Women Entrepreneurs of the World" (LWEW) award: Kobkarn Wattanavranangkul , Khungying Pornthip Narongdej, Supapan Pichaironarongsongkram and Supaluck Umpujh.
Despite the awareness of female entrepreneurs’ role in economic development (OECD, 2000), there has been limited academic attention (Baker, Aldrich & Liou 1997; de Bruin, Brush & Welter 2006), particularly to highly successful "gazelle" entrepreneurs. Extant female entrepreneurship research has explored a range of topics including gender differences (e.g. Birley, 1989; Hisrish & Brush, 1984), performance (e.g. Fasci & Valdez, 1998) and financing (e.g. O’Gorman & Terjesen, 2005). Researchers have called for studies of entrepreneurship that take into account the role of culture (Hayton, George & Zahra, 2002) and are of a qualitative nature (Gartner & Birley, 2002; Davidsson, 2004). This chapter proceeds as follows. We begin by providing an overview of enterprise and female entrepreneurship in Thailand. Next, we describe relational theory in the context of female entrepreneurship, paying particular attention to the role of family. Following a description of the data and methodology, we review four case studies of Thai "gazelle" entrepreneurs. Following a discussion of key themes, we conclude with implications and suggestions for future research.
