The theoretical development of opacity entrepreneurship in Malaysia

Abstract

Majority of entrepreneurship researchers are likely to adopt and agree to the idea of early mainstream theorists and conventional pretext entrepreneurship with a positive perspective confirmed by early orthodox theorists. However, there are some practical scenarios such as “opacity”, “underground economy”, or “informal sector”, which one needs to be aware of. In fact, one of the philosophies contributed by the research had been to investigate the ideological perspectives in the antagonistic point of view in entrepreneurship, as well as the antagonistic issues that arise. Antagonistic entrepreneurship is rarely revealed in the mainstream textbooks, but its existence is indeed wide spread in the reality. Besides, this issue is not openly discussed in textbooks due to inconvenient knowledge that might be deliberated and cause sedition against the government. Hence, this research offers contributions to the comprehension of opacity in entrepreneurship (off-the-books, gimmick and run afoul of law) in the Malaysian business conditions. Thus, a Grounded Theory Research was employed and seven entrepreneurs were interviewed, whereby the data retrieved were analyzed. As a result, the findings obtained from the research depicted that opacity in entrepreneurship had been indeed an effective strategy that has been usually involved in an opaque network in order to contend against unfavourable institutional aspect, which is detrimental to the business interest, and somehow, common in the contemporary sociocultural. Apart from that, by identifying the priorities in the opacity in entrepreneurships, Malaysia would be able to position itself in a favourable business environment, not only to foster the growth of local entrepreneurs, but also to bring in more foreign direct investments. Furthermore, the discovery of this unorthodox knowledge does not only create a new diversity in the field of entrepreneurship research, but also other fields that might benefit from the intelligence of the unorthodox aspect.