Human resource management (HRM) practices for promoting innovation tend to vary from one context to another. This leads us to investigate the configurations of internal HRM practices and supply chain collaborations that help firms to achieve high levels of product innovation or cause firms to achieve low levels of product innovation in formal R&D firms—firms which have actively engaged in systematic innovation, have established an R&D department, and/or have allocated budgets for R&D intention—and non-formal R&D firms. The data were collected during the period December 2016–February 2017 from manufacturing firms located in the Bangkok metropolitan area, Thailand. In total, 87 respondents were included for an empirical fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis. The results indicate that, first, formal and non-formal R&D firms achieve high levels of product innovation by adopting internal HRM practices or collaborating with customers/suppliers. They also can achieve high levels of product innovation if they adopt both simultaneously. Second, formal R&D firms achieve high levels of product innovation if they adopt R&D personnel development; otherwise, they need to collaborate with customers and suppliers to achieve high levels of product innovation. Finally, miss-adopting R&D personnel development causes formal and non-formal firms to achieve lows levels of product innovation.

The objective of this paper is to investigate the human resource management (HRM) and coordination activities for innovation in production network. We consider three manufacturing firms in this study, Global Green Chemicals Public Company Limited, Thaioil Public Company Limited and Siam Cement Group Chemicals Company Limited. In each case, the key innovation milestones are identified. We also examine how HRM and human resource development (HRD) are utilized to improve innovation and technological capabilities. From our results, we conclude that top management plays an important role in HRM/HRD to improve a firm’s innovation and technological capabilities. Systematic recruitment, selection, training and development are needed to achieve organizational strategies. Career path development and a reward system are important motivators for employee retention.

This paper empirically examines the effects of customers who invested in Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) on the technological capabilities of a firm for upgrading toward Industry 4.0. This paper focuses on three groups of firm technological capabilities such as production planning, inventory management, and data analysis. Each group consists of four levels of technological capabilities ranging from the fundamental to the most complex levels of technology usage. A hierarchical multiple linear regression method is used to analyze 141 respondents collected from the Thai manufacturing firms during March–April 2019. The results indicate that customers who invested in ICTs significantly and positively affect the technological capability upgrading of a firm in the groups of production planning, inventory management, and data analysis. However, there is no evidence to support that customers who invested in ICTs have positively affected firms to achieve the most complex levels of technology usage in these three groups. For the engineering implications, managers are encouraged to work closely with customers, especially customers with high technological capability. This could help a firm’s engineering teams to upgrade and catch up with customer technologies.

Joining global supply chain networks helps firms to enhance innovation performance as firms need to satisfy various standard requirements from overseas customers. From the global value chain theory, there is no evidence on what types of supply chain ownership structures help firms to achieve more innovation. This deficiency led us to investigate types of supply chain ownership structures, i.e., Pure Domestic Chain, Pure Joint Venture (JV) Chain, Pure Multinational Corporation (MNC) Chain, Export Chain, and Import Chain, that can help firms to achieve more innovation. One-way ANOVA is used to analyze 856 responses collected from the Thai manufacturing industry during 2012–2017. The results indicate that firms in the Pure MNC Chain have the highest levels of product and process innovation. There is less innovation for the Pure JV Chain, Export Chain, Import Chain, and Pure Domestic Chain, in decreasing order. This means that firms in global supply chain networks tend to have better innovation performance than firms in local supply chain networks. The innovation capabilities of local firms can be enhanced through knowledge transfer and knowledge co-creation by joining global supply chain networks.

The objective of this paper is to empirically investigate the important role of knowledge sharing approaches (KSAs) as mediators between internal knowledge sources (IKSs) and Firm Innovation. There are 111 surveys collected from presidents, owners, directors, managers, and chief executive officers of Thai manufacturing firms in 2016. Results indicate that, first, the documentation helps the source of knowledge such as middle manager in-charge, line group manager, and R&D personnel to transform into the firm process innovation. Second, the documentation and group discussion mediate the R&D personnel to create firm product innovation. Thus, the documentation and group discussion are critically important to mediate the ideas from the source of knowledge to become the innovation.

Thailand moves from an agriculture to manufacturing and service country, so strengthening in Science, technology, and innovation (STI) are important to guarantee a sustainable economic development. To gain more competitive advantage in manufacturing industry, developing in product and process innovation are necessary. An empirical statistical analysis is gotten from 112 manufacturing firms, located in Thailand. This analysis is theoretically analyzed by using multiple linear regression. The objective of this paper is to examine the influence of knowledge management on product and process innovation within formal and non-formal R&D manufacturing firms. The results indicate that the formal R&D firms tend to perform knowledge management better than the non-formal R&D firms in both product and process innovation.