Abstract
The purpose of this paper is to examine social network among SME firms in Malaysia. Specifically, this paper aims to investigate the usage of social network among Malay ethnic entrepreneurs in the start-up phase of SME firms in manufacturing sectors. Secondly, this paper aims to investigate the relationship between social network and business performance of the start-up manufacturing SME firms in Malaysia. The research data were collected through self-administered and mail questionnaire with a stratified random sample of 83 SME firms around Malaysia. The hierarchical regression was used for hypothesis testing. The result shows that Malay entrepreneurs used extensively business contact in their social network. For the hypothesis testing, the hierarchical regression shows that social network has significantly positive relationship with business performance. This paper contributes to the body of knowledge especially to the social network theme in Malaysia which is considered to be in the infant stage still. The discussions of the results, the contribution to the body of knowledge as well as limitations of the study are also discussed.
Highlights
Social network is defined as the interrelationship between the entrepreneurs and their contacts for business development purposes (Formbrun, 1982)
It empirically tested the relationship between social networks with business performance while the business performance was measured by using non-financial indicator
Prior researchers have concentrated the social network research in the Western context; given the opportunities to carry out the research for this theme in the developing country like Malaysia
Summary
Social network is defined as the interrelationship between the entrepreneurs (ego) and their contacts (alter/s) for business development purposes (Formbrun, 1982). Even though the research on social network theme was done extensively, there is a limited understanding on the role of social network especially in the developing country like Malaysia (Minai, Ibrahim and Kheng, 2012; Surin and Wahab, 2013). This paper was carried out to examine social network among manufacturing SMEs in Malaysia during their start-up phase.
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