Entrepreneurial opportunity recognition among Bumiputera SMEs entrepreneurs in Malaysia: The influential factors of social network, entrepreneurial alertness and creativity

• Main Author: Norria, Zakaria
• Format: Thesis
• Language: English; English
• Published: 2016
• Subjects: HB615-715 Entrepreneurship. Risk and uncertainty. Property
• Online Access: http://etd.uum.edu.my/6394/

The main purpose of this study is to investigate factors that influence entrepreneur in recognizing entrepreneurial opportunities. Specifically, it aims at investigating the influence of social network, entrepreneurial alertness and creativity towards entrepreneurial opportunity recognition and the moderating effect of prior knowledge of procedural and customer and prior knowledge of business operation on the relationship between social network, entrepreneurial alertness and creativity among the Bumiputera entrepreneurs in Malaysia.The motivation of this study is driven by the fact that Bumiputeras' achievement and performance in business is low and far below the target. Although Malaysian Government has implemented various initiatives and programs to fully develop Bumiputera in business, the achievement has not truly to be proud of. The overall framework for this study is theoretically underpinned by Resource-based View Theory.The study utilized a survey questionnaire which was distributed to 500 Bumiputera entrepreneurs from five states in the Peninsular Malaysia. Out of the 232 returned questionnaires, 204 were usable for further analysis. Correlation and hierarchical regression analysis were used to analyse the direct and indirect relationship between the related variables in the study. The results reveal that entrepreneurial alertness and creativity are positive determinants of the entrepreneurial opportunity recognition. However, there is no significant relationship found between the social network and the entrepreneurial opportunity recognition. This study also found that there is no moderating effect of prior knowledge of procedural and customer and prior knowledge of business operation on the relationship between the social network, entrepreneurial alertness, creativity and entrepreneurial opportunity recognition. Finally, theoretical and managerial implications as well as directions for future research are discussed.