DEVELOPING AND VALIDATING A HIGHER-ORDER STRATEGIC CAPABILITY FRAMEWORK FOR THAI REAL ESTATE SMES: A FUZZY ROUGH SET AND SECOND-ORDER CFA APPROACH

Investment in digital transformation among small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) is growing nowadays, and existing studies examining how different strategic capabilities work together as part of a broader business system are still limited and typically investigate constructs such as digitalization, market orientation, branding, social media use, entrepreneurship, and innovation. These mostly offer explanations of capability development within organizations. Especially, related to real estate SMEs, where enterprises operate in uncertain and transaction-driven markets that require the parallel management of multiple activities. Therefore, in this gap, the researchers develop and validate a higher-order strategic capability framework for Thai real estate SMEs that are facing digital transformation. Moreover, the study framework included: Digitalization Capability (DGC), Market-Driven Orientation (MDO), Brand-Centric Strategy (BCS), Social Media Utilization (SMU), Entrepreneurial Posture (ENP), Innovation Capability (INC), Competitive Advantage Position (CEP), and Firm Performance (FPF). The study uses Dynamic Capabilities Theory (DCT) and the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) to explain how digital technologies and strategic capabilities operate with evolving business context. Furthermore, a mixed-methods design was conducted, combining expert evaluation from 24 specialists with survey data collected from 1,151 Thai real estate SMEs. The Fuzzy Rough Set (FRS) analysis and second-order Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) were also applied to evaluate the proposed framework. The results provide empirical support for a higher-order capability structure in which multiple strategic dimensions function together as the same system. In addition, the study contributes a validated framework for examining how business capabilities collectively encourage application and performance in digitally transforming SMEs.