IMPACT OF CULTURAL ORIENTATIONS, ENTREPRENEURIAL COMPETENCIES AND INNOVATIVENESS ON BUSINESS SUCCESS: A COMPARATIVE STUDY AMONG SELECTED ETHNIC ENTREPRENEURS IN MALAYSIAN WHOLESALE AND RETAIL SMES

Abstract

It has been widely acknowledged that Malaysian ethnic entrepreneurs play a key role in the success of SMEs businesses. The current study was undertaken to examine the perceived impact of entrepreneurial competencies and entrepreneurial innovativeness on the wholesale and retail SMEs’ business success under the moderating impacts of environmental turbulence and network competence among Malaysian Chinese, Malay, and Indian entrepreneurs. Moreover, the six dimensions of Hofstede’s cultural framework were also examined as the antecedents of entrepreneurial competencies and entrepreneurial innovativeness. Resource Based View (RBV), Strategic Contingency Theory (SCT), and Hofstede’s cultural theory were identified as the relevant theories to support the study’s conceptual model. However, RBV was considered as the most relevant underpinning theory according to the context of this study. By applying the quantitative method approach and by adopting/adapting the survey instrument from the existing studies, the non-probability sampling techniques were used to collect data from target respondents. PLS-SEM was used to do inferential statistics. The results revealed different perceived impacts of Hofstede’s cultural dimensions on entrepreneurial competencies as well as on entrepreneurial innovativeness among Malaysian ethnic entrepreneurs. Furthermore, the positive and significant impacts of entrepreneurial competencies on business success were found only among Malaysian Chinese and Malay entrepreneurs. Likewise, findings revealed the positive and significant impact of entrepreneurial innovativeness on business success only among Malay and Indian entrepreneurs. In addition, high environmental turbulence and high network competence were not found as significant moderators for entrepreneurial competencies-business success relationship among all ethnic entrepreneurs. On the other hand, the positive and significant moderating impacts of high environmental turbulence on entrepreneurial innovativeness-business success relationship were found only among Chinese entrepreneurs. Likewise, the positive and negative but significant moderating impacts of high network competence on the relationship between entrepreneurial innovativeness and business success were only found among Chinese and Indian entrepreneurs respectively. In addition, the results also revealed a little significant difference among the Malaysian ethnic entrepreneurs with respect to the impact of this study’s variables. Based on the study’s results, it was concluded that in Malaysian multi-ethnic society, the perceived impact of predictors varies among Malaysian Chinese, Malay, and Indian entrepreneurs and their different perceptions may impact differently on the success of their businesses in the context of Malaysian wholesale and retail SMEs. Thus, this study had provided specific implications for each of the ethnic groups of Malaysian entrepreneurs.