UFHRD Europe 2012The Future of HRD-2020 and beyond: Challenges and opportunity

23rd - 25th May 2012Cover Page

Title: Dynamic Management of Human Resource and Organizational Development in Uncertain Time: A Case of Local Authorities in Thailand

Name of Authors: Prof. Dr. Chartchai Na Chiangmai, Ph.D.Organization Affiliation/Positions:

Program Director of the Leadership Development for Sustainable DevelopmentThe School of Human Resource DevelopmentNational Institute of Development Administration (NIDA)

Address: The School of HRD, NIDA118 Sukhapiban 2, Bld. 9Klongkum, BangapiBangkok, THAILAND 10240

E-mail address: cn2497@hotmail.com chartchainachiangmai@hotmail.com

Stream: Scholarly Practitioner StreamProf Jeff Gold, Leeds Metropolitan University, UKDr Valerie Anderson, Portsmouth University, UK

Submission Type: Abstract of fully refereed paper

Dynamic Management of Human Resource and Organizational Development in Uncertain Time: A Case of Local Authorities in Thailand

Abstract

This paper addresses how local authorities in Thailand should build organizational capabilities and human resource to perform a more dynamic management of development in coping with complex and uncertain local problems and needs. Based on field experience of

implementation of the Royal Initiatives Discovery Institute’s projects in 5 provinces over the past two years, the writer contends that the existing management capabilities of local authority are not effective enough to deal with increasing fluid and volatile local issues. The paper argues that the local authority should develop three core organizational capabilities. A model of integrated area-based and issue-based development management is proposed to foster these organizational capabilities. The model consists of three components of organizational development and human resource development, the repositioning and rebranding of development roles of the local authority and its functional relationships with local groups and stakeholders, the redesigning of development planning and budgeting and the reshaping of leadership and human resource competency.

Keywords:

Local Development, Sufficiency Development, Development Governance, Organizational Capability, Integrated issue-based and problem-based Development Management

I. Introduction

Globalization and rapid development of technologies in the past two decades have brought about huge waves of changes to Thailand that consequently made Thai society and local communities weaker and more vulnerable. The socioeconomic and natural resources bases of decent life in localities are at risk of being relatively more insufficient and unsustainable. The Thai government, being stalled by the impact of ongoing economic recession in the U.S and Western Europe and natural disasters, has apparently been less able to shield the economically weakest groups from the negative consequences of globalization. Moreover, simmering social and political conflicts between the aristocratic establishment and the anti-capitalism dissents at the grassroots have become structural constraints on local authorities in promoting and steering local development.

Under these contexts, a significant question is how can local authorities be more capable and accountable in supporting local development? This paper addresses how local authorities in Thailand should build organizational capabilities and human

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resource to perform a more dynamic management of development in coping with complex and uncertain local problems and needs. The data used in this paper are drawn mainly from the writer’s experience of project implementation of the Royal Development Initiatives Discovery projects in 5 provinces over the past two years and an ongoing study on poverty eradication and inequality reparation in 96 communities of Bangkok.

The paper contends that the existing management capabilities of local authority rested upon traditional public administration and management concepts are not effective enough to deal with increasing fluid and volatile local issues. The management principles and processes have been designed primarily to deliver basic public services. To be more responsive to development needs of local groups, the local authority needs a new set of organizational and human resource capabilities. A dynamic management will put the local authority in a better position and capabilities to make better development decisions under uncertain situations.

II. Governance and Holistic Societal Development

The societal development of Thailand is not inclusive and holistic. Waves of changes in the past two decades have enormously transformed the life of individuals, families, communities and society into being insufficient and unsustainable. Never before that the livelihood and survival of the landless, the marginal and the unskilled are precariously hinged upon the world economic situations and business decisions of global firms. The globalization processes have opened new economic opportunities for those people and organizations that are capable enough and at the same time handed punishments to those who are economically weak. Generally, the economic globalization has greatly weakened the Thai people, social institutions and business organizations as many have unsuccessfully adapted themselves well to the swift economic changes.

Thailand has shown remarkable economic growth over the last 20 years, reducing poverty from 21 percent in 2000 to around 8.5 percent in 2007. In the course of development over the past forty years, natural resources and human resources of local communities have been steadily tapped to foster capitalist economic modernization and mass consumption in big cities. The accelerated economic development together with centralized administration has structurally failed in redistribution of the development benefits evenly to those at the far end of the market and the social periphery.

Inequality thus remains a rather pervasive problem for Thai society to the point where citizens believe it to be a natural byproduct of economic growth. This inequality is measured as the income ratio between the top fifth and bottom fifth of households. In Thailand the ration is as high as 15 in 2009 (UNDP, 2010). A study by the central bank of Thailand points out that income inequality in Thailand has increased continuously from 1988 to 2007. In average, the top 20 per cent of income group gains approximately 54-59 per cent share of the annual national income while the bottom 20 per cent possesses only 4-4.5 per cent. Income disparity between the top 10 per cent of the richest group and the bottom 10 per cent poorest group is 23 times (Gini Coefficient is 0.44) while those in G 20 countries are 4.3 (Phutrakul, 2010).

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As industry and service sectors have become more internationalized, the unskilled and semi-skilled workers who cannot build up their competences to match labor market demands are in trouble making their ends meet. These people are falling down into the dreadful trap of debt vicious circle. As daily wage earning is lagging far behind spending, the number of the economically insufficient people and families are on the rise. And the number may be double or even more when the ASEAN Economic Community is in effect in 2015.

Small and landless farmers who have relatively poor information and ideas on markets have been perpetually trapped under the uncontrollable cycle of market-based agricultural production, processing, and trading. The inefficiency of economic and political institutions has created huge structural barriers for them to benefit from free markets. Landless and small farmers are now hardly able to wage bargaining over production volumes and prices with domestic agricultural businesses sharing vested interests with transnational corporations. Many of them have fallen into the typical pattern of low production yield, low income and high chronic debts. The cycle starts from having to take loans with exorbitant interest rates to buy inputs and producing low yields due to high costs of seeds, chemical fertilizers and pesticides, and earning barely enough to cover costs, and having to take more loans to cover the loss and start new crop production. They are also easy prey for legal abuses and petty corruption and suffered from biased public policies and poor performance of public service (Hirsh, 1990). Food security, income security, health security and family security are inherently their alarming threats. They are in desperate need of education, practical knowledge of cost reduction and increase productivity and soft loans.

The ongoing globalization has weakened local communities culturally and socially. A typical rural village is demographically resided by the elderly and the young as fathers and mothers have opted to migrate to find better income generating jobs in urban areas. There exists a difference in social values and attitudes towards life and materialism and consumerism between people of different generations, especially between the baby boomers and the generation Y. More and more younger people in local communities have concerned themselves less with community problems and community development. Many local communities have become relatively powerless in protecting themselves from social vices like drugs, gambling, alcohols and domestic violence.

At the theoretical level, there is an inextricable link between good governance and economic growth and poverty reduction. (Stiglitz, 2002 and Fukuyama, 2004). There are two schools of thought on the relation between good governance and poverty reduction in developing countries. The growth model or efficiency school argues that economic growth will lead to decline in poverty incidence. And sustained economic growth will be achieved primarily through good governance or good performance of political and economic institutions. (Dollar and Kraay, 2001). The capacity building approach or accountability school contends that inclusive development will effectively decrease the number of people who live under the national poverty line (Sen, 1999). Human development puts people and their wellbeing at the center of development and provides an alternative to the traditional, more narrowly focused, economic growth development paradigm. Human development is about people, about

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expanding their choices and capabilities to live long, healthy, knowledgeable, and creative lives. Human development embraces equitable economic growth, sustainability, human rights, participation, security, and political freedom (UNDP, 1997). A good management of development that generates a balance between efficiency and accountability is needed to create sustained development with accountable to the poor.

The problem in Thailand lies in too much centralization and inefficiency management of public investment in ways that hinder poverty reduction through better ecosystem and natural resource management. In the capitalist patronage politics, public policies have been more likely to favor the vested interests of the well to do than those of the poor. Responsible Ministries and Departments hitherto have been inadequately equipped in terms of finance and manpower to support the disadvantages and the poor to be self-reliable in solving their own problems successfully. Economic globalization with respect to deregulation and privatization has not only curbed the development role of Thai State but also weakened the responsive capacities of public institutions. The prolonged economic scarcity and poverty in rural communities have gradually diluted a sense of communal belonging and localism as well as self-reliance among local people.

In a global perspective, Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson (2012) argue that nations thrive when they develop inclusive political and economic institutions that protect the full potential of each citizen to innovate, invest and develop. They fail when those institutions become extractive and concentrate power and opportunity in the hands of only a few. Under complex and uncertain economic situations and diverse political demands, a most challenging question for Thai localities with respect to governance and inclusive development is how to strengthen local authorities to enhance market efficiency and achieve development that accountable to the poor. The scope of this paper does not allow discussing aspects of governance other than human resource development and organizational development of the local authority. If poverty reduction is empowering the poor, there can no better advocate for it than His Majesty King Bhumibol Adulyadej. Since his coronation in 1946, His Majesty has devoted his time and efforts to the well-being and welfare of the people of Thailand, regardless of their ethnicity, religion or legal status. His Majesty’s puts the poorest and the most vulnerable people of Thailand as the prime target group. He reached out and listened to their problems and empowered them to take their lives into their own hands. His Majesty has over six decades initiated over three thousands of Royal development projects that benefited millions of people. The Royal development initiatives can be classified into six areas, namely, reforestation, protection of soil erosion, sustainable use of water resources and flood and drought mitigation, alternative energy, small-scale agriculture and environment conservation. Through his philosophy and the vast knowledge accumulated from implementing Royal development projects, his Majesty has shown an unwavering commitment to poverty reduction that is in essence empowering the people.

His Majesty the King has made an invaluable contribution to human development through his development thinking. His Majesty’s philosophy of “Sufficiency Economy” provides a more balanced, holistic and sustainable development approach by stressing the principles of moderation, reasonableness and resilience to external

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changes with proper adherence to appropriate knowledge and moral values. This philosophy emphasizes the importance of responsible consumption, the diversification of household-level production as well as appropriate conduct at individual, community, business, and government levels. The philosophy’s “middle path” approach strongly reinforces a people-centered and sustainable approach towards human development (Na Chiangmai, 2005; UNDP, 2007).

In an auspicious occasion of the sixtieth anniversary of accession to the thrown, the Royal Initiative Discovery Institute (RIDI) was founded in 2009 to disseminate accurate understanding and appropriate applications of his Majesty’s royal development principles and initiatives in pursuing sufficiency development. The mission is to transfer practical knowledge derived from over three thousands Royal initiative projects and people-centered development approach to community organizations, local authorities, government agencies, business organizations and activity groups that are in need and, if necessary, provide technical supports to knowledge management and knowledge sharing among communities of practice (Royal Initiative Discovery Institute, 2010).

RIDI has identified four clusters of projects in the first five years of operation. First, area-based projects of sufficiency development in two provinces, Nan and Udon Thani. Second, strengthening development capacity of local communities and local authorities through transferring of practical knowledge gained from Royal initiative projects to support knowledge-based development activities. Third, engaging universities and knowledge institutions in bringing practical knowledge from Royal initiative projects to classrooms and developing further applied research. Fourth, supporting the provincial administration in application of His Majesty’s management model of people-centered development to implementation of integrated rural development in provinces.

With respect to development management led by the government, RIDI seeks to bridge administrative loopholes resulting from relatively centralized and fragmented functional government departments and poor integration of development functions among government offices at the provincial and district levels. By putting people first in the development planning process, civil society organizations, business organizations and local authorities and provincial functional offices are in the same level playing field. An approach of integrated development is brought into use to foster more participatory governance in poverty reduction. The approach opens broader opportunities to draw expertise and resources each participating stakeholder possesses to create a synergy of management power that generates greater development results. The RIDI approach to development discourages top-down decisions and authoritarian culture of command and control that make people submissive, less participative and more dependable on the street-level bureaucratic decisions and directives. Among other things, RIDI focuses on how to build efficiency and accountability of the local authority, as the only area–based public organization, to be able to help the poor to help themselves to survive. A main concern of RIDI in this regard is how much organizational capability the local authority, as a development-oriented organization, should possess in promotion and facilitation of a holistic people-centered development of local communities.

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III. Decentralization and Capability of Local Authority in Development Management

The centralized planning of economic development together with the traditional patronage social structure has created uneven development and widened income disparities. Decentralization for better political and economic development has eventually come to full effect after the promulgation of the 1997 Constitution. The enactment of the Decentralization Plan and Procedures Act in 1999 has put local Thai people on a high hope for decentralization as a political and administrative means to empower their local communities to be more accessible to economic resources and the local authority to be more responsive to their own problems and needs. The political sentiment was again reinforced in the promulgation of the 2007 Constitution. Four organic laws aiming to strengthening of local authorities are stipulated to be put in place within two years after the 2007 Constitution is in effect.

In developmental context, a foremost question is what do local people and communities get from decentralization? Has decentralization in Thailand in the past decade (1999-2009) brought about a better development of the local communities and people’s quality of life? Are local authorities capable enough to become proactive players in economic, human, cultural, and environment development in the globalized world? There are no concrete and well-rounded answers to these questions. And in fact there is no study yet to give us a comprehensive result of decentralization and performance of local authorities as there is no systematic impact evaluation study either by the government or any academic institutions.

Up to the year 2010, 187 of the targeted 245 public services were transferred to about 8,300 local authorities (Na Chiangmai, 2010). These public services are officially grouped into six development areas, that is, basic infrastructures, social and quality of life development, economic and commerce promotion, natural resources and environment conservation, security and disaster prevention, and cultural and arts promotion. And up to 26.14 % of the government’s income or 431,255 million baht was the total budget of the local authorities in the 2011 fiscal year. Of this, 173,900 million baht was the government grant to the local governments (Office of the National Decentralization Committee, 2011).

Decentralization is in essence the transfer of responsibility and accountability to local authorities for better delivery of public services and development of localities. In general, people in local communities, particularly those in remote areas, have been provided with more public services they needed. They can access to public services more easily with lesser costs. Another side of the picture, however, is not quite impressive. The image of local authorities as a whole in the eyes of the general public has been rather tarnished with inefficiency and insensitive to real development needs.

There are a number of factors that hinders the local authority from being a key actor in development of local communities. Studies on decentralization and local government identify the following five structural and behavioral constraints and weaknesses local authorities are generally facing.

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1. A number of functions and authorities were unsuitably transferred to local authorities. As there was no assessment of competences of each individual local authority prior to transfer of authorities, many local authorities had functional authorities transferred that did not in line with their needs and their existing administrative capabilities (Mektriratana et al, 2009).

2. There has yet been a clear conceptual framework and administrative mechanisms put in place to handle authority relationships between the central administration, regional administration and local administration and between the different types of local authorities based on the principle of subsidiarity or the division of labor (Na Chiangmai, 2010).

3. The local authorities are less autonomous as their financial capacity is very weak. Local taxes authorized by law to the local authorities are limited to few items that do not generate substantial amount of annual revenue (Ruechupan, 2003). They are therefore dependent heavily on the government financial support. In the 2009 fiscal year, for example, only about 12 per cent in average of the total budget of the local authorities all over the country came from local taxes and fees they collected by themselves. The rest were taxes and grants allocated by the central government (Pathamasiriwat, 2008). There is no local fiscal surveillance system to monitor and ensure sustainability of fiscal and monetary situations of local authorities (KruaeThep, 2011).

4. As a consequence, there are no administrative mechanisms to guarantee the minimum quantity and standard of basic public services local people will receive from their respective local authorities.

5. Human resource management and development system of the local authority is very weak. A good number of local authorities have suffered from not only having not enough manpower but also being shortage of well-trained executives and employees. The local authority’s human resource system does not adhere strictly to the merit system especially in area of hiring, career development, rotation, performance evaluation and compensation (Mektriratana et al, 2009).

The centralized administration of decentralization process and the tight control system over the local administration in the past decades has bureaucratized local authorities’ administration. The command and control approach used by local authorities in implementation of development projects not only leaves little room for people’s participation but also lessens the abilities and skills of executives and employees of local authorities to understand local contexts and development problems in a holistic picture and find proper solutions. The existing management capabilities of local authority rested upon traditional public administration and management concepts are not effective enough to deal with increasing fluid and volatile local issues. The management principles and processes have been designed primarily to handle routine works and public services delivery. The administration of decentralization under the patronage political structure has allowed local leaders and powerful people gaining more access to power, resources, and

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social statuses than their fellow local people. As a result, a sense of communal concern has been gradually declined and turned many local people to be more individualistic recipients of public services and populist policy handouts.

IV. Integrated Area-Based and Issue-Based Development Management

A formative evaluation of implementation of RIDI projects in Nan province over the past two years and a survey research of 10,048 residents of 272 communities in 50 wards of Bangkok on social inequality in Bangkok Metropolitan Area in February this year point out a need to refine developmental role of the local authority and suggest that a holistic and integrated human-centered development is a most viable means to bring about sustainable development of local communities. And the local authority should be equipped well enough to facilitate an integrated area-based and customer-focused management of local development (PhuangSumlee. et al, forthcoming; NIDA Consulting Center, 2012)

The integrated area-based and customer-focused development management approach requires a comprehensive understanding of development contexts and problems as a whole of a community and those of particular local groups in order that development functions and services will be integrated suitably and the development positioning of the local authority in relation to each targeted local groups will be assigned properly to fit the absorptive capacity and the development results each particular local groups should benefit.

The local authority has to be more responsive, creative and accountable organization. The local authority needs to concentrate their resources more on developmental role, especially in area of local economic development. The local authority’s management potentials and capability in securing local economic resources and facilitating economic productivity has to be largely uplifted. The priorities are the revitalization of the sense of local consciousness and building up new capacity of local communities in integration of local resources, knowledge and wisdom in order to make sensible adaptation to external pressures and challenges. The prime task of local authority is to increase economic resilience or immunity of local groups in handling natural resource management and income generating activities. The local authority should open up new administrative spaces and encourage local activity groups to take part meaningfully in local development planning and implementation as well as in eradication of negative consequences of economic development upon the environment. Sustained development of local communities depends greatly on the extent to which local groups and households are effectively empowered to handle their own development. In line with a suggestion developed by Prahalad and Hamel (1990) on how companies develop competitive competency, a local authority may over time develop key areas of expertise that are distinctive to that local authority and critical to the local authority’s long term strength.

In this regard, this paper identifies three core organizational capabilities the local authority should develop in order to effectively facilitate an integrated area-based and customer-focused management of development.

First, an ability to comprehend complex contextual needs of stakeholders in identifying and driving development strategies.

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Second, an ability to acquire, share and collect the knowledge capital, financial capital, social capital and management capital, particularly the indigenous spiritual and intellectual capital. Third, an ability to manage productive interaction and communication between and among networks of people and organizations residing in the same organizational ecology.

To build up these organizational capabilities, three components of organizational development and human resource development of the local authority have to be restructured.

1. Repositioning and rebranding of development mission 2. Redesigning of local development planning and budgeting

3. Reshaping leadership competency

1. Repositioning and rebranding of development mission

The first component takes into account the repositioning and rebranding of the local authority in local development. A local authority has to take right strategic positioning in undertaking development issues and maintain proper relationships with targeted groups and stakeholders in response to global changes and local socioeconomic uncertainties. In line with this management strategy, functions and responsibilities of the local authority in local development should be reassigned more appropriately in accordance with the existing organizational capabilities and resources that local authority possesses in a given time. The collaboration and networking between local authorities located in the same geographical area certain issues and agenda should be designed under the principle of subsidiarity. The government should prioritize areas of development that more functions and authority should be transferred to the local authorities to enable them to serve as a focal organization mobilizing and integrating resources and competence to support local communities in adapting to global changes.

To meet the purpose of decentralization for sustainable development, the local authority has to shift its functional positioning in development management from being an administrative assistant to the provincial administrative offices to become a leading core organization in promoting and supporting sustained human development of local communities. While the provincial administration is structurally designed to perform state function-based development, the local authority should be rebranded as an area-based public organization specialized in conducting human-centered and agenda-based development. In contrary to the resource-based approach championed by the central government over the past decades to drive annual economic growth and poverty reduction, the local authority is geographically located in a better position to adopt the capability approach in human-centered holistic development of local community.

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To nurture the new image branding, the local authority should make a clear commitment on two tracks, political and operational, to bring about a sufficient development of local communities that ensures safety nets for local people in general and the weakest in particular in line with the King’s philosophy of sufficiency economy. A systematic assessment should be done to identify the capabilities the local authorities of various types and sizes required in order to perform more efficient and accountable development of local communities. And a set of policy guidelines on how to build up new capabilities of the local authority to handle global and domestic changes in the near future is to be developed.

2. Redesigning of local development planning and budgeting

Goal setting in development of a local community is an important first step. In line with the implementation of Royal development projects elsewhere, the local authority working in close cooperation with a local community should set a precise and tangible target of development goal to be reached in the next three to five years. The community’s development results should assessed in terms of three consecutive stages of development, namely, survival, sufficiency, and sustainability or 3Ss. Similar to successful complex organizations, having a common purpose and goals that firmly committed by the leaders and community groups is a powerful driving force in mobilizing ideas and efforts as well as internal and external resources in striving to achieve the targeted development goals.

To promote local economic and business development, the local authority’s capability in areas of practical knowledge and information acquisition and systems thinking needs to be immensely improved to correctly perceive and understand complexities and uncertainties of the global commodity markets and logistics that have direct effects on costs of agricultural products and related services and hence annual income and debts of local farmers. In the globalized borderless world of businesses and manpower mobility, a local authority, an administrative organization that can legally perform functions and public services within its own territory limit, has to put much more time and efforts on performing issue-based activities of income generation and poverty reduction. These activities require the local authority to work far beyond the territorial boundary in form of collaboration and networking with other organizations and institutions operated within the same and different administrative levels. In sustaining development of local communities and households, a consumer-focused management approach should be used to fulfill development needs and demands of each socioeconomic group, with priority given to the insufficient and the weakest.

Putting the philosophy of Sufficient Economy into practice, the planning and budgeting process for local development should be reshaped to increase dynamism to management capabilities of the local authority. The following two management strategies, among other priorities, should be put in place.

1. Increase the bottom-up flow of communication and persuasive power while decreases top-down flow of command and control. In other words, increase the degree of organic organization to the existing mechanistic organization of local authorities.

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2. Expansion of space and process of cross-organization learning and horizontal transfer of knowledge and information via interactive learning together through actions.

Development planning of the local community that administratively characterized by the top-down mode of operation has to be reoriented to support the bottom up flow of ideas and demands. Development planning and implementation with the purpose of helping the local groups to help themselves should adhere to His Majesty’s management principles of development process, that is, comprehension, communication, and contribution. The three steps of development process will empower local people and groups to engage in community development activities with greater sense of ownership and self-reliance.

Comprehension is the first step process through which a local authority as a development facilitator crafts a thorough appreciation of a targeted local community as a living system. Physical, biological and socioeconomic data and information of a community in historical perspective are collected and analyzed together with the local people to reach a common understanding of the community’s development needs and feasible solutions.

Communication is a process of information sharing to develop common acknowledgement of the existing development problems and needs that the local households and groups are committed to do away with the support of the local authority. This step of management is leading to strengthening confidence and trust of the local groups to rely mainly on their own in managing and solving their own problems.

Contribution is the stage that embraces an interactive learning process through collaborative actions of all concerned stakeholders. It is the process through which the local authority channels integrated external resources and technical support to local groups in developing and managing issue-based development projects. The key idea is to encourage self-reliant community development and make the local authority and development counterparts to be more responsive to development needs of each socioeconomic group. Volunteered families are facilitated to draw their own households’ annual life plan and, putting together, an annual community life plan. The local authority then serves as a clearinghouse of technical knowledge and resources to support local families and groups in the process of problem-based development.

3. Reshaping leadership and HR competency

Human resource development practices of the local authority have been designed primarily to build up functional competency to maintain the ongoing operation of basic public services. Performance assessment of the executives and individual officials and work groups are created primarily to increase internal efficiency and transparency of administrative procedures and quality improvement of basic services. A recent study on perception and satisfaction of the implementation of RIDI projects in Nan and Udon Thani Province suggests that a new set of leadership competency and a well-defined structure of recruitment and development system of local leadership be developed to handle an integrated holistic human-focused

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management (Assawadondecha et.al, 2012). Leaders and employees of the local authority have to be equipped with three sets of managerial competency in management of functional relations across organizations and administrative territories as well as to facilitate societal changes of localities in line with global and national changes.

1. Promotion of productive workplace. This set of competency consists of the following important management skills, that is, effective communication, team learning and coaching.

2. Development of knowledge-based organization. Local leaders and development workers need to improve their skills in critical thinking, problem solving and knowledge management.

3. Articulation and advocacy of bottom-up development initiatives. Executives of local authority need a vivid ability to act as a smart linking pin in shaping and channeling from-the-ground-up demands on social and economic development policy initiatives. In so doing, they have to possess good skills in issue framing, agenda networking, fund raising and resource mobilization.

These leadership capabilities are conceptualized by scholars under various leadership models, for instance, chaordic leadership (Hock, 2000), quantum leadership (Ercetin et.al, 2008) social change leadership (Astin and Astin, 1996). These leadership styles and management competency can be effectively developed by having to take into account both the learning and development approach and the enabling organizational culture. Schein (2004) argues that organizational culture and leadership are two sides of the same coin; neither can be really understood by itself. The organizational culture determines a large part of what leaders do and how they do it.

Since development issues are divergent problems that need interdisciplinary perspectives and knowledge and cross-functional judgments and decisions, problem-based action learning mode and learning-by-doing or action learning are suitable for supporting collaborative learning among local authority and community groups and stakeholders. Kotler and Caslione (2009) contends that the cross-functional problem-based decision-making enhances better decisions and increase speed of learning of concerned parties and thus enable adaptive capacity of organizations in time of uncertain world. It also facilitates a shift in values and beliefs or culture of local authorities (Chatdumrong et.al, 2002)

Management is a living system that draws basic ideas and behavior from biological principles. Basic structures of a biological system consist of nets and networks of complex relationships of subsystems. Each subsystem possesses self-managed capacity to rearrange relationships and adapt continuously to changing environments. Barabasi (2003) suggests that an understanding of evolutionary process of a biological system be applied to design organizational and human resource development. To catch up with the speed of changes in task environment of development, leaders and employees’ speed of learning can be boosted up by adopting a key strategy in human resource development that the writer terms “ link and learn”.

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This human resource development strategy puts in place an imperative management condition that decision-making of any development-oriented activities must be made mainly on linking packages of practical knowledge and information concerned groups and organizations possessed. Such decisions are collective decisions or learning platforms in which executives and staff of a local authority and all concerned parties share ideas, experiences and lessons gained from implementing development activities. Repetitive rounds of collective decisions based on linkages of practical knowledge and best practices in human and community development will gradually strengthen capabilities of leaders of the local authority in creating and adding public value to limited public resources. To meet future global realities and challenges, local authorities thus need to build up these new competence by investing in a well-structured development system of new generation of transformational or quantum leadership. The leaders who are keen in engaging talents and creative organizations to reduce development risks and increase chances of sustainable growth and human security. And the leaders who are strongly committed to and strived for holistic development that is accountable to local people, especially the poor.

V. Concluding remarks

Continuous improvement of local authority’s management capability in facilitating an integrated area-based development has to be done in a systematic manner. A strong emphasis should be put on developing of local leaders who have a long-term vision and strong commitment to bring about development results inclusive to the ordinary people. There are, however, structural and behavioral constraints in scaling up and mainstreaming the proposed model. Of the most important, the prevailing political patronage and bureaucratic culture of local administration is a key barrier to a paradigm shift in development management. Further studies should identify structural and behavioral factors that are enhancing fast flow of new ideas and beliefs within local authorities and encourage cross-functional experiential learning and innovative thinking.

A question concerning methodology in knowledge management is how and to what extent we can transfer lessons gained from implementation of RIDI’s projects in different areas to enrich our understanding and improvement of organizational performance and human resource development of local authorities elsewhere. Data on development project results are usually not strong enough in Thai development studies. It is therefore very difficult to build up development and management models or theories based on case studies in Thailand. In this light, an overall research question is how best to capture, structure, store and distribute of RIDI’s project-based knowledge of human resource and organizational development (HROD). How can HROD data gained from implementation of RIDI’s development projects be scientifically captured and stored to provide a strong case-based reasoning to build up from the ground-up human resource development and organizational models and theories? A knowledge management system should be designed to capture and distribute large amount of knowledge on HROD through

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heuristic reasoning and case-based reasoning and make them available timely for applications.

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