Malaysian Small Medium Enterprises Research Articles

Comparison of Lean Tools and Techniques Implementation between Large and Small Firms in Malaysian Organizations

This study examines lean tools and techniques based on their awareness, usage, effectiveness, and possible future adoption between Large Firms and Small and Medium Enterprise (SMEs) in Malaysian organizations. Currently, there are no such data has been found in Malaysia to compare the lean tools and techniques implementation for both firms to help the organization to know what the best lean tools and techniques for their nature of businesses. An online survey was conducted in this study using a questionnaire to gather data from 114 respondents from 14 states, and the results were analysed using the IBM SPSS statistical software. The results of the survey showed that there were no significant differences (p<0.05) between both large firms and small medium enterprise (SMEs) organizations for the majority of lean tools and techniques. Study findings, however, show that Malaysian Small Medium Enterprises (SMEs) adopt some lean tools and techniques more often than large organizations. It is important for managers to know the current levels of awareness for lean tools and techniques based on their nature of business to help them adopt and consequently improve their knowledge of lean tools and techniques which is lacking.

Development of an Order Processing System using Google Sheets and Appsheet for a Malaysian Automotive SME Factory Warehouse

The automotive industries in Malaysia have grown well and developed many suppliers in their supply chain including Small Medium Enterprise (SME). The order handling process at a supplier's factory has become one of the most critical areas in the supply chain. Adaptation to technology such as IoT enables the automotive supplier to better manage their customer orders and avoid mistakes that affect the supply chain. In order to improve the order processing activities, a study has focused on developing a mobile device application using Google Appsheet and Google Sheets as a cost-effective system for managing supply orders. A study was conducted in one of Malaysian SME automotive companies, which manages the orders manually by using a log book with a lot of recording and redundant work. By using Google Sheets, all the information and data involved in order processing activities is imported and digitized. Then, a mobile application is created using Appsheet so that the ordering activities and processing can be completed on a mobile device. All information gathered by the mobile app (Google Appsheet) is immediately saved in Google Sheets on an Excel-based database, allowing for further data analysis. The research conducted has managed to integrate these two applications into a system for Malaysia's SME factory to manage the ordering activities in the automotive supply chain. This system enables the user to shorten their order processing time since data is captured in real time and mistakes due to manual error can be avoided.

Lean Principles in Small-Medium Enterprises in Malaysia: Creating A Web-Based Training

Lean principles (LP) are well-established strategies for increasing the throughput of business organizations. Many large corporations have benefited from LP implementations in their organizations. However, acceptance of LP implementations among Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) remained low, owing primarily to persistent prejudice and a lack of access to LP tools. This paper presents a Web-based Training (WBT) approach to alleviate such constraints and to accommodate the circumstances of SMEs in term of their financial, time and knowledge resources. The fundamental concepts of LP, SME, and WBT are presented in the first part of this paper based on a review of literature studies. Following that, the development of optimal WBT modules is elaborated on the basis of survey validations on the connectivity of LP and SMEs in Malaysia, emphasizing the use of simple words and terms for ease of comprehension by the targeted SME users.

The Tendency for Occupational Fraud in Malaysian Small Medium Enterprises and The Effect of Internal Control, Ethical Culture and Awareness on Fraud

Occupational fraud requires serious attention due to its detrimental effect towards businesses, nation’s economy, and community well-being. Implications led to businesses losing their revenue while affecting global economy negatively and depriving the society of fair share on nation’s wealth. Malaysia’s businesses have seen cases of occupational fraud among small, medium sized enterprises (SME) representing the significant portion of country’s business population of 95%. Such vulnerability among them were due to deficiency in control system. Hence this study aims to assess the influence of internal control, fraud awareness and ethical culture on tendency of occupational fraud within SMEs in Malaysia. Most past studies have focused on public sector and listed companies while limited study was done on SME with inconsistent results. Questionnaire survey was adopted with SME staffs as respondents from 384 SME out of 907,065 establishments. Data collected was analyzed using multiple regression which revealed significant influence by internal control and fraud awareness factors on tendency of occupational fraud among SME staffs, while ethical culture showed insignificant influence. This study has limitation due to limited number of response rate of 33% and sample may not consist of SME whose staffs had committed occupational fraud. The finding provides further evidence on tendency of occupational fraud among SMEs. It will be useful for organizations, especially SMEs in understanding potential areas requiring further attention to remedy occupational fraud.

The Influence of Entrepreneurial Ecosystem on SMEs Industry in Malaysia

The rise of Small Medium Enterprise (SMEs) businesses leads to the dynamic and competitive environment. To excel in the market, companies have spent a substantial amount of money, time and resources by designing right strategies to sustain. However, this SMEs businesses faces few challenges such as small capital investment, short of talent, limited access to infrastructure and support mechanism. Despite the government’s several institutional and policy support for enhancing the capacity of this Small Medium scale enterprises, the results have fallen short of expectations. Given the increased demand for Small Medium Enterprise’s products, creating a viable entrepreneurial ecosystem model for SMEs in Malaysia is critical. This is because the entrepreneurial ecosystem is a system of interrelated components that influence the speed and ability with which entrepreneurs, particularly SMEs can create and scale new ventures in a sustainable manner. As a result, this study seeks (1) to analyse the demographic profile of Malaysian small and medium enterprise and (2), determine the extent at which entrepreneurial ecosystem affect the Small Medium Enterprise in Malaysia. This study is important to investors, the ministry, the government, academics and even business owners because it provides a comprehensive model for understanding the SMEs entrepreneurial processes and how ecosystems emerge, change and influence entrepreneurship activities.

Impact of total quality management on industry 4.0 readiness and practices: does firm size matter?

ABSTRACT Digitalization transforms the business environment, and organizations face challenges to make progress. The initial step to support organizations is to evaluate their readiness, resources, and capabilities for improvement. Drawing on the resource-based view (RBV) theory, the purpose of this study is to empirically analyze the effect of digitalization of Total Quality Management (TQM) or Quality 4.0 on industry 4.0 (I4.0) readiness and actual practices of I4.0 with firm size as a moderator. Based on data from 228 respondents, the study model was empirically validated in Malaysian small-medium enterprises. The results revealed that soft TQM (top management commitment (TMC) and human resource management (HR) and hard TQM practices; process management (PM) and quality information & analysis (QIA)) are positively associated with I4.0 readiness that further improves the actual practices of I4.0. Contrary to our expectations, education and training have no significant effect on I4.0 readiness. The results also show the mediating role of I4.0 readiness between TMC and QIA with the actual practice of I4.0. Furthermore, firm size significantly moderated the proposed relationships. The established framework helps managers to anticipate their management decisions’ effects on those results affecting I4.0.

Implementation of OSH Risk Management among SMEs in Malaysia: A Systematic Literature Review

This study investigated the implementation of the occupational safety and health (OSH) risk management system, known as the Hazard Identification, Risk Assessment and Risk Control (HIRARC), in small-medium enterprises (SMEs) in Malaysia. Specifically, the implementation of the HIRARC system’s challenges and weaknesses faced by SMEs were investigated based on a systematic literature review of two databases, namely SCOPUS and Google Scholar. The results show that there was scant work on the HIRARC system implementation and limited specific industries, such as construction and production. Additionally, the challenges faced by SMEs were categorised into the HIRARC system’s weaknesses and the organisation’s inadequacy in implementing the system. This study provided implications to the OSH regulators in continuously promoting the HIRARC system’s significance while improving the system and encourage its assimilation among SMEs in Malaysia. This study is also hoped to provide some guidance to the SMEs in Malaysia in implementing OSH risk management system.

The Impact of Social Entrepreneurship, Corporate Social Responsibilities, and Working Capital Management Practices on the Performance of Tourism Small-Medium Enterprises (SMEs) During COVID-19: Moderating Role of Employee Behavior.

The failure or success of an enterprise depends upon its working capital management practices (WCMP) along with effective corporate social responsibilities (CSR) and social entrepreneurship (SE). These factors ensure not only the soundness of financial indicators but also the profitability of an enterprise. Therefore, the objective of this study was to determine the impact of CSR, SE, and WCMP on the performance of small–medium enterprises (SMEs) of tourism sector, during the lockdown period in Malaysia. The goals also include the investigation of moderating role of employee behavior (EB) among the nexus of CSR, SE, WCMP, and performance of SMEs. The survey was performed to find out the practices adopted by the SMEs during corona days. A quantitative research method has been adopted to get data with convenient sampling technique, and PLS-SEM has been exploited to find out the significant nexus among CSR, SE, WCMP, and the performance of SMEs. The results indicate that CSR, SE, and WCMP have a positive association with the performance of SMEs in Malaysia. The results also indicate that EB positively moderates among the nexus of CSR, SE, WCMP, and the performance of SMEs in Malaysia. Stock review strategies by the SMEs during the corona days also exhibit significant differences except for no stock review. Significant differences between the enterprises show a lack of adaptation of the financial indicators that determine enterprise soundness. The study not only provides guidelines for entrepreneurs of SMEs but also helps in maintaining standards for the evaluation of the enterprises.

The Role of Propinquity and Coordination in Influencing Competitive Advantage of Retail SMEs in Malaysia

The existence of hypermarkets and supermarkets with modern retail format has affected the performance of many retailers in the category of small medium enterprises (SMEs) in Malaysia. In this era of disruptive marketing, the main challenges of retail SMEs are the ability to survive, to remain competitive and to sustain the business. With the challenges of finding the right strategies to compete effectively, there is now an inclination to look at social networks as means of establishing strong market presence. Engaging and maintaining social networks in their business relationships is essential for retail SMEs if they want to address strategic positions and subsequently build strong competitive advantage in the business. This study postulates that establishing social networks, specifically in terms of propinquity (related with network cluster, network centrality and geographic proximity) among social network members, will enable the gathering of important resources needed by retail SMEs to secure more sustainable competitive advantage. However, only few studies have focused on social networks especially from the Asian context and many have overlooked the importance of social networks in retailing. This study also suggests the need to focus on coordination in relation to propinquity of social networks which refers to the location of retail SMEs and their ability to coordinate efforts to gain competitive advantage. This study extends the literature on social networks by providing a conceptual framework describing the importance of propinquity on coordination of activities leading to the development of competitive advantage for retail SMEs.

Investigating the Moderating Effect of Marketing Capability on the Relationship between Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Practice and Corporate Reputation in Small Medium Enterprises Food Operators

This study expanded on the existing research on corporate social responsibility (CSR) in food supply chains by investigating the moderating effect of marketing capability on the relationship between CSR practice and corporate reputation in the context of Malaysian small medium enterprises (SMEs). Data were collected from 264 SMEs operating in the Malaysian food supply chain using a questionnaire and analysed using Partial Least Square (PLS). The objectives of this study are as follows: 1) to investigate the awareness of CSR and the trends among local food SMEs, 2) to analyse the factors that motivate SMEs to implement CSR, and 3) to examine the moderating effect of marketing capability on the relationship between CSR practice and corporate reputation. This study found that supply chain partners’ pressure and government support were the antecedent factors for CSR practice. In addition, this study also highlighted that CSR practice enhances the responding firms’ corporate reputation. However, this study did not find substantial evidence to support the moderating role of marketing capability. The implication of this study implies that food operators should respond to the rising importance of CSR practice due to their powerful influence on a company's reputation. They should enter a collaborative relationship with their supply chain partners to gain access to resources needed for CSR implementation.

Factors Influence Malaysian Small-Medium Enterprise to Engage in Facebook Marketing

Social media plays an important role as a marketing tool to promote Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs’) businesses. Among the social media platforms, Facebook is the preferred advertisement tool for SMEs. It is because Facebook provides more features for SMEs to communicate with their customers such as by using direct messenger, comments, like, and share. SMEs engage in social media to lower the cost of advertisements, attract new customers through online contact, improve the interaction with customers or customer engagement, and create brand awareness of the company. Most of the past research has focused on the value of brand awareness and customer engagement on Facebook, however, there is a limited amount of research related to the value of cost-efficiency and attracting a new customer base especially in a developing country like Malaysia. As such, this study reviews the literature on social media marketing and factors influencing Malaysian SMEs to engage in Facebook online marketing. This study also proposes a conceptual framework on the factors influencing Malaysian SMEs to engage in Facebook online marketing.

Should I Go or Should I Stay: job hopping in Malaysia small medium enterprise (SME) service sectors

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to determine the relationships between learning opportunities, person-organization fit, self-directedness career attitude and job hopping among generation Y employees in Malaysian small medium enterprise (SME) service sectors.Design/methodology/approachResearch data was gathered from a sample of 203 generation Y employees from SME service sectors in Malaysia. Partial least squares structural equation modelling is used to perform the data analysis in the present study.FindingsThe results demonstrated that person-organization fit and self-directedness career attitude correlates significantly with job hopping among generation Y employees. However, there is no significant relationship between learning opportunities and job hopping.Research limitations/implicationsThis study provides an empirical framework for explaining the job hopping among generation Y employees in SME service based on the review of related careers.Originality/valueThis study offers new insights into the predicting factors of job hopping among generation Y employees in the Malaysian context specifically.

Enhancing innovation performance of small and medium enterprises in Malaysia

Small medium enterprises (SMEs) hold 98.5% of businesses and serve as economy backbone in Malaysia. However, the global competitiveness of Malaysia in innovation has been declined recently. The declining innovation index has been reflected a low level of innovation in SMEs. This study serves as one of the pioneer studies conducted to foster the achievement of Malaysia Master Plan (2012-2020), focusing on a fresh approach to bring SMEs to the next level through innovation. The study aims to examine which innovation factors affect innovation performance, as there are relatively little empirical evidences in previous researches and very little innovative activities in SMEs Malaysia. This study uses quantitative research methodology, 300 sample sets have been collected from Malaysia SMEs and the data was analyzed by using Structural Equation Modelling (SEM). All proposed factors in this study (absorptive capacity, internal R&D collaboration and knowledge sharing) are significantly affect innovation performance, except technology transfer. The findings of this study provide theoretical contribution and practical contribution for small medium enterprise, stakeholder, academic institution, policy makers as well as a reference for government to help SME achieve higher innovation.

Shariah Information Disclosure and its Effect on Financial Perfomance among SMEs in Malaysia

Introduction: Shariah disclosure has become an important aspect in a Small-Medium Enterprises (SMEs). The disclosure of shariah information would enhance the transparency and accountability of SMEs towards its stakeholders which in return helps promote the long-term profitability and sustainability.
 Objective: (1) examine the extensiveness of Shariah disclosure and (2) investigate the relationship between Shariah disclosure on product and services, financing, earnings and expenditure, social functions and environment and its effect on financial performance of SMEs in Malaysia.
 Methods: In total, 131 respondents comprised of owners and top management of SMEs in the state of Selangor, Kedah, Pahang, and Johor. The questionnaire was developed based on Shariah Index for Islamic Social Reporting and the data was analysed using multiple regression.
 Results: The findings indicated that Shariah disclosure on financing found to have significant relationship on the financial performance of SMEs. In contrast, products and services, earning and expenditure, social functions and environment were found to have no significant relationship on the financial performance of SMEs. The results also show that working environment for workers was disclosed extensively by SMEs while, earning expenditure on non-Shariah compliant the disclosure was less extensive.

Entrepreneurial Leadership and Sustainable Performance of Manufacturing SMEs in Malaysia: The Contingent Role of Entrepreneurial Bricolage

The purpose of this research is to delve into the effect of entrepreneurial leadership (EL) on the economic, environmental, and social aspects of sustainable performance; the research also focuses on the contingency role of entrepreneurial bricolage (EB). The increasing concern focused on the triple bottom line (TBL) issues has triggered enthusiasm and inspiration in the field of sustainable entrepreneurship, especially amongst the small medium enterprise (SME) owners or leaders who are directly responsible for organizational sustainable performance. This research examines the relationships between EL and economically sustainable performance (ECSPF), environmentally sustainable performance (ENSPF), and social sustainable performance (SOSPF); these relationships are contingent upon EB through the lens of Upper Echelons Theory (UET) and Effectuation Theory (ET). A total of 146 responses from a cross-sectional survey from Malaysian manufacturing SMEs were investigated using Partial Least Squares-Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM). The findings reveal that EL has significant effects on ENSPF and SOSPF, but has an insignificant effect on ECSPF. Meanwhile, EB does not play the contingent role in strengthening the relationships between EL and ECSPF, EL and ENSPF, and EL and SOSPF. This research highlights the importance of EL and shows that SME owners or leaders should embrace and develop their skills as a crucial step towards achieving sustainable performance for their companies. The implications and limitations of the research are discussed and recommendations for future research are also presented.

The Dimensions of Entrepreneurial Orientation and Business Environment

The fundamental of entrepreneurial orientation (EO) is needed to engage entrepreneur being creative, innovative, risky as well as uncertain activities in the market place and discover new opportunities before their competitors. Due to low risk-taking propensity, Micro, Small Medium Enterprises in Malaysia growing in number each year but they are not into becoming a large corporation due to unwillingness to commit resources to undergo activities and projects which resulted in the uncertainty of the outcomes. Hence, this study discussed the fundamental of entrepreneurial orientation and practices of EO among the new entrant in the business.Keywords: Creative, Innovative, Risky, and EntrepreneurialeISSN: 2398-4287© 2020. The Authors. Published for AMER ABRA cE-Bs by e-International Publishing House, Ltd., UK. This is an open access article under the CC BYNC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). Peer–review under responsibility of AMER (Association of Malaysian Environment-Behaviour Researchers), ABRA (Association of Behavioural Researchers on Asians) and cE-Bs (Centre for Environment-Behaviour Studies), Faculty of Architecture, Planning & Surveying, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Malaysia.DOI: https://doi.org/10.21834/e-bpj.v5i13.1949

Assessing Sustainable Competitive Advantage in Relation with Intellectual Capital, Knowledge Management and Innovativeness in Women-Owned SMEs in Malaysia

Small Medium Enterprises (SMEs) play an important role in contributing the economic growth of most nations. As the global economy slows down, entrepreneurship role becomes increasingly important to drive the pecuniary and societal well-being. In 2012, Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM), reported an estimation of 126 million women have started or running new businesses in around 67 countries around the world. In addition, about 98 million women are operating established businesses. Study showed that women seem to face difficulties in moving from one phase to another to withstand the entrepreneurship process thus; they are rated lower in terms of starting venture comparing to men. This paper provides a conceptual discussion on the role of intellectual capital, knowledge management, and innovativeness in sustaining competitive advantage of women owners of SMEs. The variables investigated eventually attempts to establish and test an integrated framework for intellectual capital.

Solar Thermal Installation Capacity: Malaysia Small Medium Enterprises with and Without Fiscal Incentives

Solar Thermal Installation Capacity: Malaysia Small Medium Enterprises with and Without Fiscal Incentives

Big Data Management for Malaysian Small Medium Enterprise (SME) Industries Involving Dust Explosion Incidents

A dust explosion accident in Malaysia is seldom discussed by the safety practitioner or by authorities. Small Medium Enterprise (SME) industries tend to neglect the risk lies within their boundary since it was not happening, and this mainly become the reason the dust explosion event does occur repeatedly. The introduction of the trend cases in this study will be the goal in order to make industries aware the dust explosion as thread in the business operation sustainability. Data was collected through literature, case reported in DOSH website safety alert, document analysis and observation at field by using triangulation methodology in qualitative research model. It was found out there is an increasing trend in the reported cases related to dust explosion at workplace. This trend does confirm the study that dust explosion accident is becoming threat in making industry to operate in sustainable manner. Nevertheless, in Malaysia, there is still lack of awareness in understanding dust explosion accident by industrial practitioner. This is where the researcher has started an initiative in developing a local database using Microsoft Access comprising all over the world cases study. The compilation of accidents was extracted using five elements related to the Explosion Pentagon principles that will ease industrial sharing in term of lesson learn and this database known as UMP-DEx. This database is maintained by UMP researchers in Process Safety Management. The update takes place throughout years and the sharing on the best practices will be ongoing basis. The normal platform used in developing awareness in industrial is by participating in conferences, project paper publications, journal publications, and lastly by conducting training in industries. The sharing of this database will help industries in managing the same risk from happening by understanding the root cause and easily plan mitigation action to avoid this accident from happened again.

Identifying the Factors of the Successful Implementation of Belt and Road Initiative on Small–Medium Enterprises in Malaysia

This article is a conceptual review of identifying the factors of the successful implementation of Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) on small-medium enterprises (SMEs) in Malaysia. China’s president Xi Jin Ping has launched the China’s ‘One Belt One Road’ (OBOR) initiative or BRI in 2013. BRI focusses on the connectivity and cooperation between Asian, European and African continents economically and strategically through massive infrastructure developments, trades and investments. BRI is specified to two international trade connections: land-based ‘Silk Road Economic Belt’ and sea-based ‘21st Century Maritime Silk Road’. Malaysia is one of the Southeast Asia countries that actively participated in BRI. According to the World Bank, SMEs are almost 98.5 per cent of business establishments in Malaysia, which undoubtedly indicates how important SMEs are in Malaysia. As such, that is the question to ponder of how BRI could connect and associate with the enhancement and development of Malaysia’s SMEs. Therefore, the objective of the study is to identify the factors of the successful implementation of BRI on SMEs in Malaysia. Based on this study’s literature reviews, it would be suggested that new business and investment opportunity creations, connectivity and cooperation enhancement, trade and export boosting, geographic location and enhancement of e-commerce were the most critical factors in the successful implementation of BRI on SMEs in Malaysia.