Abstract
The purpose of the study is to understand the role of self-efficacy in influencing entrepreneurial orientations of small scale Malay entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurial orientations are consistently found to influence performance quite positively. Therefore, the understanding of how strong self-efficacy influences entrepreneurial orientations would also help in identifying ways to improve the performance of small scale businesses. There was a lack of research to see what drives business owners to choose among the entrepreneurial orientations, while there were so many researches conducted to see the impact of entrepreneurial orientations on performance. Thus, finding what influences entrepreneurial orientations would be a significant contribution to the field of entrepreneurship. The samples comprised of 162 small scale Malay SMEs in the manufacturing industry in all the states of Malaysia. The Rasch Measurement Model was used for the purpose of construct reliability and validity. In order to identify the influence of self-efficacy on entrepreneurial orientations and its two dimensions (proactivity and innovativeness), a simple linear regression and independent-t test were undertaken by using the SPSS as a tool. The findings indicated that self-efficacy was significantly related to entrepreneurial orientation and self-efficacy of the Malay entrepreneurs has affected innovativeness more strongly than the proactive dimension of entrepreneurial orientations. The independent-t test also was able to identify that Malay entrepreneurs withwith low self-efficacy. The findings give important implications to management consultants whose clients are SMEs to design training modules that specifically focus on developing self-efficacy among average performing SMEs because self-efficacy was found to improve the entrepreneurial orientations of entrepreneurs. Keywords: Self-efficacy, entrepreneurial orientations, innovativeness and proactivity.
Highlights
The literature indicates a growing number of studies on entrepreneurial motivation and orientation which include self-efficacy (SE) as an explanatory variable
Other concepts similar to self-efficacy identified by Mitchell and Daniels (2003), which have been used by other research scholars include personal agency beliefs, personal efficacy, capacity beliefs, and perceived competence
Variance explained by measure of 43 per cent which appeared in the unidimensionality test indicated that the instrument used for the study measured what it intended to measure
Summary
The literature indicates a growing number of studies on entrepreneurial motivation and orientation which include self-efficacy (SE) as an explanatory variable. SE turned out to be important because, as discovered by Bandura and other research scholars, SE could have an impact on everything from the psychological state to behaviour to motivation. Research on self-efficacy among Malay entrepreneurs in Malaysia is lacking. It is the hope of this paper to fill the research gap and expects that more research on the roles of selfefficacy on entrepreneurial behaviours could be conducted especially in Malaysia. This is because self-efficacy is not inborn rather could be developed and trained.
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