In addition, to gain an insight into the nature of the supply chain in the Thai
automotive industry, firm interviews were conducted. A flexible interview guide was
used that allowed the respondents to relate their experiences in their own words, based
on their own sequence of the topics asked in order to minimizes the likelihood of
missing important aspects of the story. The interview guide begins by establishing a
general company profile, i.e. size, past performance, ownership, production process,
product destination, product covers, etc. This is followed by a series of opening probes
into firms’ supply chain behavior, starting with their general perception of the industry’s
development. This is followed by asking their opinions about the development of input
procurement and recent changes in their procurement. Then questions were asked
concerning opinions of the usefulness of FTAs and any potential obstacles such as rules
of origin (ROO) constraints and opportunity costs of applying FTA preferential tariffs.
Finally, general questions concerning current problems, the role of government and
future prospects for the industry were addressed. Interviews were held with top-level
managerial staff from five Thai enterprises and four government officers from the
public sector during February 2011 to April 2011. All of the interviews were conducted
by the author.