Determinants of business performance amongst women entrepreneur in Johor, Malaysia

Abstract

From historical and traditional perspectives, Malaysian women have long been involved in entrepreneurship. Although their percentage in this sector is still low compared to men, this field opens another opportunity for women to earn income. Therefore, this study is to examine the relationship between human factors, social factor, organizational factors and innovation towards business performance amongst women entrepreneurs in Johor, Malaysia. The study utilized quantitative approaches that comprised of a self-administered questionnaire to gain a better understanding of the study context. In the early stage, the study carried out preliminary interview with a women entrepreneur to observe current situation of women in handling business. In obtaining actual data, the study was later distributed questionnaire to selected women entrepreneur in Johor. The findings discovered that human factors, social factor, and organizational factors were a positive and significant relationship with business performance. However, the result from the hierarchical regression analysis shows that innovation does not moderate the relationship between organizational factors toward the business performance. From the results provide evidence and explanation of the determinants of business performance amongst women entrepreneurs in Johor, and also contribute some crucial insights to the policymakers to further develop and improve the current policy and training programs or workshops for the entrepreneurs. The study outcomes are significantly useful to the government agencies to develop upcoming policy and also set up proper support and training programs for the intended group women entrepreneurs, such as providing business skill training, increasing marketing services, providing workshops, creative thinking courses and some social welfare trade programs. To address the limitations of this study, future researchers may expand this research by emphasizing on other business platform types, so as to influence this present business performance trend amongst women entrepreneurs.