A research study submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Business Administration, School of Management

Research Studies Project Report (M.B.A.) - Asian Institute of Technology, 2001

Telecommunication advancement is one of the crucial infrastructures for economic development of a country. Under current information society, Public Telecommunication Operators (PTOs) in many developing countries try to be less dependable on foreign technologies by enhancing R&D capabilities. Technological capability assessment has been proposed by many studies found in the literature, however, R&D capability assessment of the PTO was not a focus of previous studies. This paper is intended to determine a set of indicators and criteria to assess R&D capabilities in telecommunication service industry. As a case study of a PTO, R&D capability of the Technical Research and Development (TR&D) department of the Telephone Organization of Thailand (TOT) is assessed. The required R&D capabilities are specified through reviewing the literatures and discussing with experts in the telecommunication industry. Accordingly, a set of indicators as well as criteria and ranges for evaluating the results of each indicator assessment is developed and evaluated. Data collection is obtained through interviews and questionnaire surveys. The TR&D department that emphasizes on incremental R&D to enhance quality of the existing telecommunication services by reducing causes of failure and developing new products, reaches certain level of capability, that can be further enhancement through active co-operation of three parties, the TR&D department, TOT and the Government. The study concludes with recommendations to these three parties how they specifically can contribute to this endeavor.