Social Media Adoption and Business Performance among Bumiputera Micro-Entrepreneurs in Malaysia: Is Entrepreneurial Orientation a Missing Link?

Abstract

Social media have functioned more than just a socializing site. Many parties have exploited the opportunities available within the social media application like education, business, networking engagement and much more. Like in business, social media seems to be a must platform for every business venture and has even been seen as the quickie way to start a business. The question is, do these so-called online business owners possess any specific entrepreneurial characteristics which influence their business performance? Or does it matter to possess specific entrepreneurial characteristics to excel in online business? Thus, this paper is to undergo a study to see if entrepreneurial orientation does have an impact on social media adoption and business performance among Bumiputera micro-entrepreneurs. This study is trying to integrate UTAUT theory and resource-based-view theory to evaluate how social media adoption may impact the business performance among the Bumiputera micro-entrepreneurs. A total of 239 micro-entrepreneurs were identified and responded to the survey. The result shows a positive relationship between social media adoption and business performance; however , the study shows no significance of entrepreneurial orientation to the relationship between social media adoption and business performance.