Enabling social enterprise success in Malaysia: A conceptual model linking entrepreneurial ecosystem and financial performance

Abstract

With the evidence that social enterprises (SEs) are playing a significant role in promoting a country’s inclusive growth, it is worrying that only 33% of the social enterprises in Malaysia are able to sustain themselves by making profit, according to the report of the Malaysian Global Innovation and Creativity Centre (MaGIC) in year 2019. Therefore, this finding raises concerns where it is crucial and pressing to identify what are the resources that would assist social enterprises to achieve sustainable financial performance. Despite some studies that have explained the positive relationship between entrepreneurial ecosystem (EE) and commercial enterprises, there are still limited studies connecting entrepreneurial ecosystem to the financial performance of social enterprises. From this angle, the purpose of this study is to determine if the entrepreneurial ecosystem in Malaysia influences the financial performance of Malaysian social enterprises. A total of 130 online questionnaires will be distributed to the founders and co-founders of social enterprises in Malaysia with the purpose of data collection.