| Thailand, as becoming a major market of Southeast Asian Region, is now booming in increasing in the automobile production. Along with the significant emergence of the Big Three American automobile manufacturers namely, G.M, Ford, and Chrysler. They have expanded their global market in the entire of AFTA region, particularly in Thailand. This dissertation thus focuses on the attitude and the acceptance of foreign automobiles by Thai people. There are so many foreign automobile companies which invest their automobile plants in Thailand. Accordingly, the main purposes of this dissertation are: (1) To investigate the acceptance of American automobiles, when competing with other foreign automobiles in Thailand, by Thai people. (2) To study the preference of Thai people concerning the foreign automobile purchasing by the overall value. (3) To study the preference of Thai people concerning the automobile selection by its country of origin, price, quality, fuel economy, and distance perception. (4) To study the preference of Thai people concerning a new foreign automobile purchase by demographic variables of gender, age, education, marital status, and monthly income.;The exploratory research was the major method of this dissertation which measured the convenient samples with 162 people out of 200 questionnaires. According to the question of the automobile perception, the interviewee ranked the preference, price, quality, fuel economy, and the next purchasing of automobile with the relationship of distance of foreign people and foreign countries. All questionnaires were sent to most Thai educated working class who are good in high English literacy in the different areas in Bangkok, Thailand.;Also the statistical analysis mainly relied on T-test, the analysis of variance, chi-square and the correlation coefficient. With respect to the result of all hypotheses which were investigated by this dissertation, it was so interesting to find out that: (1) There were statistically significant difference of automobile purchasing preferences by Thai people by the overall value of foreign automobile; (2) There were statistically significant difference of automobile preferences by Thai people by price and quality; (3) The fuel economy was the one of main factors in selecting the automobile between different countries of origin; (4) There were statistically significant relationship of automobile selection and the perception of the country of origin; (5) There were statistically significant different between Thai people preferences for a new foreign automobile purchase with the demographic variables of gender, age, education, marital status, and monthly income. (Abstract shortened by UMI.). |
