Entrepreneurial Networking: Tractor and combine harvester in Thung Kula Rong Hai

Abstract

This article on the networking of tractor and combine harvester entrepreneurs in the Thung Kula Rong Hai region aims to challenge mainstream studies that primarily explain rural entrepreneurship from a business management perspective focused on market mechanisms and financial profit. A literature review reveals that while studies on the transition of farmers to entrepreneurship exist, they lack an explanation of the dynamics of complex informal economic networks or new market spaces. This article therefore seeks to present entrepreneurs in these new market spaces as social actors who integrate traditional kinship relationships with modern economic mechanisms.

The research findings indicate that during the 1990s and 2000s, policies promoting cash crops were a driving factor in the adoption of technology to replace manual labor. During this period, villagers began accumulating experience and becoming job brokers, utilizing social mechanisms known as “Tao,” which involves building trust through kinship systems or clinging to their group to create networks for finding work in plowing and harvesting. Later, during the 2000s and 2010s, government guaranteed rice price policies and access to credit accelerated capital accumulation and led to their full-fledged status as agricultural machinery entrepreneurs. Within their groups, they manage their markets using a non-overlapping system (or no overlapping territories), dividing areas of influence to control competition, while maintaining flexibility through cross-group alliances to manage resources.