Abstract
This study investigated the effect of economic vulnerability upon competitive advantages, performance, and sustainability of micro-enterprises owned and managed by micro-entrepreneurs who participate in varied development initiatives in Peninsular Malaysia. Upon adopting the cross-sectional design, data were randomly collected from selected 300 micro-entrepreneurs from the eKasih program (national poverty data bank) located in four states of Peninsular Malaysia. The quantitative data were collected by conducting structured interview sessions with the respondents held from September until November 2017. The findings revealed that the state of economic vulnerability among the respondents had a significantly negative effect on the aspects of competitive advantages, performance, and sustainability among micro-enterprises in Peninsular Malaysia. Despite of the widely acknowledged and empirically examined effects of socioeconomic antecedents upon micro-enterprise performance, the focus on the effect of a more comprehensive measure of socioeconomic condition, that is, economic vulnerability, among low-income households appears to be scant. Hence, the outcomes of this study are able to provide critical insights for development organizations pertaining to development programs and their effectiveness on economically vulnerable, particularly among low-income households in Peninsular Malaysia.
Highlights
The dire issues of poverty, vulnerability, and inequality appear to be some topics constantly debated amongst developing nations
This study investigated the effect of economic vulnerability on competitive advantages, micro-enterprise performance, and micro-enterprise sustainability among micro-enterprises owned and managed by micro-entrepreneurs who participate in varied development initiatives in Peninsular
The effect of economic vulnerability on competitive advantage, enterprise performance, and sustainability of micro-enterprises owned and managed by micro-entrepreneurs who participate in various development initiatives had been determined
Summary
The dire issues of poverty, vulnerability, and inequality appear to be some topics constantly debated amongst developing nations. Despite the reduced incidence of poverty and hard core poverty (Al-Mamun and Mazumder 2015; Ahmed et al 2016), inequality in income distribution and socioeconomic vulnerability among the poor still remain a threat among the low-income households in Malaysia, as well as in other developing nations (Nair and Sagaran 2015). Empirical evidences that incorporate the elements of economic vulnerability, competitive advantages, firm performance, and sustainability at the level of micro-enterprise are still scant. In order to overcome this limitation and to shed light on the relationship and the effect of economic vulnerability upon competitive advantage, enterprise performance, and sustainability; this study had been carried out from the stance of low-income household setting
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