Noor Hazlina Ahmad

Is entrepreneurial competency and business success relationship contingent upon business environment?: A study of Malaysian SMEs

Purpose – The purpose of this article is to evaluate the effect of entrepreneurial competencies and the moderating effect of business environment on business success in small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) in Malaysia.Design/methodology/approach – A sample of 212 Malaysian SME owner‐founders participated in this study. The structural equation modeling (SEM) procedure was used to test the proposed model.Findings – The results showed that entrepreneurial competencies were strong predictors of business success in SMEs in Malaysia. It was also found that the association between entrepreneurial competencies and business success was more strongly evident in hostile and dynamic environments than in more benign and stable environments.Research limitations/implications – Self‐report was used as the source of all data. This approach, even though criticised by some, was deemed necessary because of difficulties associated with the independent assessment of each of these variables. Nevertheless, future studies sh...

Assessing the Dimensionality of Business Success: The Perspectives of Malaysian SME Owner-Managers

Realizing that the measurement of success in the context of small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) is somewhat disparaging, this study aims to validate the business success construct based on the perspectives of SME founder-managers in the Malaysian context. Following a data collection of a sample of 212 SME founder-managers, a confirmatory factor analysis was performed to examine the factorial validity of the success measure and to assess its goodness of fit. The result indicates that business success is a four-factor structure, reflecting in (a) satisfaction with financial performance, (b) satisfaction with non-financial performance, (c) performance relative to competitors, and (d) business growth.

Understanding business success through the lens of SME founder-owners in Australia and Malaysia

Given the lack of consensus on how to measure success, this paper explores the meaning of business success as perceived by SME business owners in Australia and Malaysia. A qualitative methodology was adopted whereby semi structured interviews were conducted with ten entrepreneurs from each country. A content analysis of the interview data identified 20 criteria for defining success, broadly categorised into: 1) financial; 2) lifestyle; 3) social responsibility; 4) customer satisfaction criteria clusters. Interestingly, the answers provided by Australian entrepreneurs were largely similar to the Malaysians. However, slight differences relating to aspects of financial, lifestyle and social responsibility were identified. Overall, this study finds evidence for the utilisation of multidimensional measures of business success in Australia and Malaysia.

Product innovation among ICT technopreneurs in Malaysia

Purpose – The first purpose of this study is to discuss a brief review of the literature in product innovation, innovation strategies and resources. The second purpose is to present qualitative findings related to product innovation as well as their strategies and resources among ICT (information and communication technology) technopreneurs in the software sector of Malaysia.Design/methodology/approach – This qualitative study is a preliminary study to a larger empirical study. Semi‐structured interviews were conducted with five ICT technopreneurs in Malaysia.Findings – The findings generate insights into the kind of market that ICT technopreneurs are in, the problems they are facing, their practices and opinions towards product innovation, and their strategies as well as the resources required.Research limitations/implications – One limitation of the work could be related to the small sample size.Practical implications – The findings imply that resource constraints, market factors such as market need, an...

Bridging the Gap of Green IT/IS and Sustainable Consumption

‘Greening’ of business has gained attention across industries and academia. Green information technology (IT) is a critical domain of green information systems (IS) as utilization of environmentally sustainable information and communication technologies (ICTs) facilitates informed decision-making. Green IT and IT for green are at the growth stage among developed countries and at the infancy stage among developing countries. The absence of an established theoretical framework that anchors present and future studies necessitates an examination of peer-reviewed journals and proceedings that are published online. With reference to 10 organizational theories, this study presents an overview of Green IT/IS applications and discusses noteworthy research questions that may guide forthcoming empirical investigations to identify determinants or prospective outcomes of Green IT/IS. Frameworks of a firm’s readiness to go green via eco-sustainable IT practices are discussed from diverse theoretical viewpoints to ground implications, in pertinence to heterogeneous approaches towards the adoption of Green IT/IS. The review also presents practical business opportunities to IT managers of socioeconomic-oriented organizations. As journals and conference papers are the foremost source of reference, emerging developments of this study may also appear in books and white papers. This article establishes linkages between organizational theories and Green IT/IS implementations and presents suggestions on further extensions for those who wish to investigate this field.

Examining stakeholders’ influence on environmental responsibility of micro, small and medium-sized enterprises and its outcomes

Purpose – Given the uprising interest in the environmental responsibility issues among small businesses, the purpose of this paper is to design to probe into the relationship between stakeholders’ influence and environmental responsibility of Micro, Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (MSMEs), and its consequent outcomes in an emerging economy. Design/methodology/approach – A sample of 110 MSME owners participated in this study. Data were collected by means of questionnaire designed to measure the 12 constructs of focus. In order to test the hypotheses and examine the relationships proposed in the research framework, structural equation modelling was performed using SmartPLS. Findings – This study revealed that among the primary stakeholders, only employees and customers significantly influenced environmental responsibility practices of MSMEs. Besides, it was found that environmental responsibility results in financial improvements and better relations with employees and customers. Research limitations/imp...

Nurturing Intrapreneurship to Enhance Job Performance: The Role of Pro-Intrapreneurship Organizational Architecture

Following the needs to ingrain intrapreneurial spirit among Malaysian workforce, as highlighted in the National Economic Advisory 2010, the aim of this study is to identify the organizational architecture that can be designed to foster such behaviour which could subsequently lead to better job performance. Specifically, this study examines the effects of five dimensions of pro-intrapreneurship organizational architecture; namely, “management support”, “work discretion”, “reward and reinforcement”, “organizational boundaries” and “time availability” on intrapreneurial behaviour which was then regressed to the job performance. A sample of 263 employees consisting of engineers and managers working in multinational companies participated in this study. The findings were tested using structural equation modeling procedure. In general, the results indicate that except for “organizational boundaries”, other organizational architecture namely “management support”, “work discretion”, “reward and reinforcement” and “time availability” were found to have positive significant effects on intrapreneurship. In addition, intrapreneurial behaviour is found to be positively related to job performance. In short, it can be surmised forming an internal ecosystem that is conducive for the workforce to behave intrapreneurially is a wise step to foster innovativeness culture that could subsequently be translated into a long term growth and sustainability of the organization.

Supporting entrepreneurial business success at the base of pyramid through entrepreneurial competencies

Purpose – Large private organisations (LPOs) creating entrepreneurship opportunities for people at the base of the economic pyramid (BoP) is a thought-provoking issue for researchers. The main purpose of this paper is to empirically explore the influence of support from LPOs on entrepreneurship business success among the BoP segment through entrepreneurial competencies. Design/methodology/approach – The paper follows a quantitative research approach. Data were collected from a sample of 134 BoP entrepreneurs in Bangladesh using a structured survey instrument. Partial least square has been employed as a statistical technique to analyse the data. Findings – The influence of support provided by LPOs, in terms of technical and training, increased entrepreneurial competencies among the BoP entrepreneurs. Further, entrepreneurial competencies contribute to the proliferation of the BoP entrepreneurship business success and play a mediating role to achieve business success as long as technical and training suppor...

Is entrepreneurial competency and business success relationship contingent upon business environment

Purpose – The purpose of this article is to evaluate the effect of entrepreneurial competencies and the moderating effect of business environment on business success in small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) in Malaysia.Design/methodology/approach – A sample of 212 Malaysian SME owner‐founders participated in this study. The structural equation modeling (SEM) procedure was used to test the proposed model.Findings – The results showed that entrepreneurial competencies were strong predictors of business success in SMEs in Malaysia. It was also found that the association between entrepreneurial competencies and business success was more strongly evident in hostile and dynamic environments than in more benign and stable environments.Research limitations/implications – Self‐report was used as the source of all data. This approach, even though criticised by some, was deemed necessary because of difficulties associated with the independent assessment of each of these variables. Nevertheless, future studies sh...

Service innovation management practices in the telecommunications industry: what does cross country analysis reveal?

Service innovation management practice is currently being widely scrutinized mainly in the developed countries, where it has been initiated. The current study attempts to propose a framework and empirically validate and explain the service innovation practices for successful performance in the telecommunications industry of two developing countries, Malaysia and Bangladesh. The research framework proposes relationships among organisational culture, operating core (innovation process, cross-functional organisation, and implementation of tools/technology), competition-informed pricing, and performance. A total of 176 usable data from both countries are analysed for the purpose of the research. The findings show that organisational culture tends to be more influential on innovation process and cross-functional organisation in Malaysian telecommunication industry. In contrast, implementation of tools/technology plays a more instrumental role in competition-informed pricing practices in Bangladesh. This study revealed few differences in the innovation management practices between two developing countries. The findings have strategic implications for the service sectors in both the developing countries regarding implementation of innovative enterprises, especially in Bangladesh where innovation is the basis for survival. Testing the innovation management practices in the developing countries perhaps contains uniqueness in the field of innovation management.