Professor Dr. Sakun Boon-it, Lecturer of Thammasat Business School, Thammasat University and the winner of the National Outstanding Researcher Award of the Year 2023 in Economics said future research will be more complex. There is a body of knowledge in various disciplines used in research works. Therefore, working on research across disciplines or interdisciplinary and with research teams in different fields helps make research respond to complex questions and bring benefits to society better.
Expertise in conducting research work
This research is the research that studies the connection of organizations in the supply chain. It is a collaboration of each business organization that wishes to increase the value of products or services to customers. The research study will be a collaboration to study mechanisms that will help manage the environment, such as reducing air pollution, water resources, or using less raw materials, and even minimizing costs. Currently, business organizations are taking this matter very seriously. During the epidemic of COVID-19, we studied the mechanisms of each supply chain organization in working together to overcome any disruptions during this crisis. Such research also brings academic benefits and in practice that allows certain business operations to be implemented and through a period of business interruption which also known as the disruption from the COVID-19 epidemic.
Research must be implementable
The research I work on focuses on goals in two aspects. The first is academic, which is achieved through publishing in international-level academic journals in order to present knowledge to the academic society and the second aspect is the application of research to the practical use by business sectors, society or the nation, such as research results can be implemented and applied for the development of business operations, therefore, the importance of research is that there must be a balance on both sides.
When in crisis, it shall be able to go on
The benefit that arises from the cooperation of supply chain is that whenever there is a problem such as a business interruption or environmental issues, without academics to guide on what to do, society or the country will be in great trouble. When we have research that is useful in practice, it will be able to help solve problems in society better, business will be better, and eventually the country will be better and continue growing.
Cross-disciplinary research work will help answer complex research questions
In the future, the research problems will become more and more complex, therefore the future trend of research is cross-disciplinary research work. Cross-disciplinary research must begin with research identity. We must be able to identify the key skills or competencies, the others then see that we have this, and how will they benefit from what we do in that regard. For example, I worked on supply chain and other professors saw that I project strong expertise in this field, and that some subjects could be linked across disciplinaries. We then form a better research team and work together to solve complex research problems in all dimensions.
