Mohd Nor Hakimin Yusoff

Entrepreneurial orientation and antecedents of low-income household heads in Kelantan, Malaysia

The objective of this study is to determine the distribution of entrepreneurial orientation across districts, gender, education level, occupation, and experience levels in Kelantan, Malaysia. This study employs the crosssectional approach and quantitative data were collected from 800 low-income household heads in Kelantan, Malaysia. It was found that the distribution of entrepreneurial orientation is the same across gender. However, findings reported a significant difference in the distribution of entrepreneurial orientation across districts, education level, occupation, and experience level. Policy makers should therefore focus on interactive programs in order to increase the level of entrepreneurial orientation among low-income household heads in the district of Jeli, those who never attended school, the unemployed, and those who reported to have no experience as they scored the lowest mean rank. Received: September, 2017 1st Revision: November, 2017 Accepted: December, 2017 DOI: 10.14254/20718330.2018/11-1/10 Journal of International Studies S ci en ti fi c P a pe rs

Validating the Instrument to Measure Entrepreneurial Traits

The objective of this study is to develop a distilled measure for entrepreneurial traits particularly in the context of low-income households in Malaysia. In this attempt, the following study examined the need for achievement, locus of control, tolerance of ambiguity, visionary, persistence, and resilience as components to develop an instrument to measure entrepreneurial traits among low-income households in Kelantan, Malaysia. The study adopted a cross-sectional design and collected quantitative data through structured interviews from 800 low-income households across four districts in Kelantan, Malaysia. Based on the reliability and validity tests, this study finalized the instrument reducing a 58 items scale to 20 items yielding four factors, i.e., need for achievement (five items), tolerance of ambiguity (five items), visionary (four items), and persistence (six items). Findings of the reflective hierarchical model revealed that persistence is the highest contributor towards entrepreneurial traits among the low income households in Kelantan, followed by tolerance of ambiguity, need for achievement, and visionary. It is recommended that future researchers further extend the developed measure by cross-examining the instrument forwarded by this study across different income-level groups living throughout diverse economies.

The Development of an Entrepreneurship Index for Low-Income Households

Abstract The Entrepreneurship Index (EI) serves as a measurement tool that effectively determines if one possesses the prospect of becoming a successful entrepreneur by assessing several essential aspects, such as entrepreneurial orientation, personality, leadership, motivation and knowledge, pertaining to functional skills. Hence, the cross-sectional design was adopted in this study and quantitative data were gathered from some randomly selected 800 Asnafs (those eligible for zakat—donation for the poor) listed under the Kelantan Islamic Religious and Customs Council. The outcomes of this study that classify the aspects of EI are grouped into three categories: low, medium, and high EI. As a result, the variances between high class and both medium and low classes have been double and triple, respectively. Furthermore, participants from Bachok, on an average, obtained higher scores on EI, in comparison to those from other districts. These findings can be turned into an essential measurement tool to indicate both entrepreneurial potentials and readiness among those from rural low-income households, which can be employed by relevant bodies in their attempt to aid those with entrepreneurial prospects and higher possibilities of attaining success in the business arena.