ARTICLE REVIEW

TITLE:
‘MALAYSIAN WOMEN ENTREPRENEURS: SOME
EMERGING ISSUES AND CHALLENGES OF
ENTERING GLOBAL MARKET’

PRINCIPLES OF ENTREPRENEURSHIP (ENT530)

FACULTY & PROGRAMME : FACULTY OF ADMINISTRATIVE SCIENCE &

POLICY STUDIES
SEMESTER : 3
NAME : LIYANA FARISYA BINTI HAIRIN NIZAL
STUDENT ID : 2020974435
PROGRAMME : AM225
GROUP : N4AM2253A
LECTURER : MADAM ZAIDATULHUSNA MOHD ISNANI
MALAYSIAN WOMEN ENTREPRENEURS: SOME EMERGING ISSUES AND

CHALLENGES OF ENTERING GLOBAL MARKET

Filzah Md Isa

Taylor’s University, Malaysia

Mathivannan Jaganathan

Universiti Utara Malaysia, Malaysia

Muhd Afiq Syazwan Ahmdon

Taylor’s University, Malaysia

Hairunnisa Mohamad Ibrahim

Taylor’s University, Malaysia

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank to my lecturer of Principles of Entrepreneurship,

Madam Zaidatulhusna Mohd Isnan for her supports and advices in completing this article
review. I am very appreciate what have she done to explain about guidelines of article review.
May Allah reward her for all her effort towards us. This article review have tested my abilities
especially mentally.

I would like to extend my deepest gratitude and special thanks to all who have directly and
indirectly guided us in the writing this project paper. I would like to express my deepest
appreciation to our beloved parents, family and friends for their encouragement are greatly
appreciated.

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 TABLE OF CONTENT

PAGES

TITLE PAGE 1

ANKNOWLEDGEMENT 2

TABLE OF CONTENT 3

1. INTRODUCTION 4

2. FINDING AND DISCUSSION 5-8

3. CONCLUSION 8

4. REFERENCES 9

5. APPENDICES 10-20

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INTRODUCTION

This article chosen ‘Malaysian Women Entrepreneurs: Some Emerging Issues and
Challenges of Entering Global Market written’ by Filzah Md Isa, Mathivannan Jaganathan,
Muhd Afiq Syazwan Ahmdon, Hairunnisa Mohamad Ibrahim (2019) discuss on the women
entrepreneurs in Malaysia that facing with many issues and challenges in order to entering
global market. This article have been chosen because for the purpose of academic learning
for students that taking course ENT530 to understand more on the issues that particularly
facing by women entrepreneurs. Even though many studies shows the successful of women
entrepreneurs in Malaysia but in this article it highlighted that women entrepreneurs have
been facing such difficulties in establishing their business.
This article which stresses on the issues of women entrepreneurship and challenges that
related with gender, cultural, responsibilities which it makes women feel difficult to merge
their business into the global market. Over the years, we have been observing an emerging
trend of more Malaysian women entrepreneurs choosing to start their own business such as
real estate, food and beverage, fashion apparel, trading, import and so on (Isa, Jaganathan,
Ahmdon, & Ibrahim, 2018). However, women entrepreneurs had to deal with issues and
challenges that men entrepreneurs were not deal with. In which, women entrepreneur are
more difficult to be successful compared to the male entrepreneurs.

Although there are many past reports, academic and non-academic literature gave the
plausible impression on the number of women business formation, yet the number of
successful women entrepreneurs is far minimal compared to men, and men entrepreneurs
still dominating most of renown entrepreneurial activities (Isa, Jaganathan, Ahmdon, &
Ibrahim, 2018). In this article, it stated for this past reports had shown that men
entrepreneurs were more successful rather that women entrepreneurs. This is because
women entrepreneurs are facing and dealing with issues and challenges that were not deal
by men entrepreneurs. Women entrepreneurs in Malaysia must be able to face issues and
challenges that might occurred as they want to maintain their business in the market. The
challenges affected their business and women entrepreneurs tend to keep their business
small as to avoid conflict that related to their responsibilities. That is why entering the
international market is very difficult as there are more obstacle that women entrepreneurs
need to tackle on. They must be prepared in terms of individual, organizational and
environmental factors.

FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION

The overall purpose of the article are to collect and analyse the information on women
entrepreneurs and regarding on the ways of successful women entrepreneurs in Malaysia
preparing and handling issues and challenges arise during their international market
penetration. The theme of this article are the difficulties of women entrepreneurs in

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managing the business towards international market which the authors wanted to examine
the women entrepreneurship in penetrating into the global market as authors believe that
women entrepreneurship have contributes in Malaysian economy development. This article
are providing insight of women issues, organizational and environmental factors.

The new ideas that communicated in this article are the issues and challenges that
Malaysian women’s entrepreneur facing in entering global market. There are a few issues
and challenges that authors stress on such as the cultural values which in traditional life,
the roles of woman have been portrayed as individual that carrying out the household
obligations and taking care the kids at home. This shown that if women are running a
business it will lead to the conflict as they need to manage the house chores and at the same
time they have to run their business. This could lead to inappropriate business direction.
Furthermore, the women entrepreneurs were facing with gender inequality which authors
said that in terms of the loans and funds accessibility, women entrepreneurs are hardly to
access with it compared to the male entrepreneurs. Other than that, authors highlighted on
the responsibility and duties of women entrepreneurs have lead them to keep their business
small and lack of desire to participate in the business activities as to avoid conflict occurred.

The important to be publish of these ideas because it explain more on the issues that
women entrepreneurs basically in Malaysia which not every people known their hardships
when they are running a business. In this article, authors wanted to highlight that even
though women entrepreneurs had been given government grants and funds such as
TEKUN, SME Corp, Amanah Ikthiar Malaysia (AIM) and Ministry of Women, Family and
Community Development (MWFCD) that were introduced to encourage Malaysian
Women to become entrepreneurs but number of successful women entrepreneurs are still
far behind men entrepreneurs. This were because women entrepreneurs are dealing with
challenges that men entrepreneurs are basically not dealing with such as cultural values and
gender inequality.

The method used that stated in this article is first-hand information from participants. In
which authors stated qualitative method been used. They conduct the face-to-face interview
with the women entrepreneurs, confirmation via telephone and secondary information such
as documents, company profiles, and other related material describing the company’s
achievements or milestones. The sampling that used to approach these women
entrepreneurs in this study that was purposive sampling. In this article, the study focused
on the women entrepreneurs that involved in local and international market. In which
quantitative method for this study are not suitable to be used.

The research methodology in this article is that the researchers had to get first-hand
information from the participants as purpose of collecting the required data, the personal
face-to-face interview with 10 women entrepreneurs had been conducted and the
interviewer have conduct the structured interviews which it focusing on the questions
explanation on how the women entrepreneurs penetrate international market. The interview
were conducted by using purposive sampling approach. Researcher had used the purposive

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sampling in which researcher had relies on his or her judgement when choosing members
of population to participate in the study. Authors had stated that the sample were derived
from Ministry on International Trade (MITI’s) successful entrepreneurs list, Penang Malay
Chamber of Commerce (Dewan Perniagaan Pulau Pinang) and Majlis Amanah Rakyat
Pulau Pinang (MARA). The qualitative method in this study were used as quantitative
method could not provide the researchers with high accuracy to understand the
phenomenon which to study on the issues and challenges of Malaysian women
entrepreneurs.

The research outcome of this study are different women entrepreneurs have different
issues and challenges that need to be encountered in the international market which they
need to overcome it. For example, some issues that have been stated by the participants
such as culture of local market, different procedures and law restriction, fluctuations of
exchange rate and many more. These issues had become the obstacles for the women
entrepreneurs to enter the international market. By having different kinds of issues these
participants have different approaches in managing their own business in order to ensure
their business could be able to succeed in the local and international market, so every
women entrepreneur has to properly control their problems from becoming serious. For
instance, meeting with the staff and not being too strict with the staff, increase efforts in
promotion and so on as to ensure that their problem could be resolve and could penetrate
the international market.

Also, the outcome of the research found that women entrepreneurs in Malaysia need to
have proper business plan, a distinct business format, sufficient business information,
business flexibility that is able to fit in any situation, having good access to ICT, able to
focus on cost competitiveness to compete with rivals, financial stability, a good business
operation management and wide business networking with various parties that may directly
or indirectly influence their business operation. In order for the women entrepreneurs to
enter the international market, they said that their marketing strategies need to be improvise
as to fit in global arena. In this study, the authors also found that the importance of
environmental factors which could not been fully control by women entrepreneurs even
though they have the sufficient strength organizational and individual factors.
Environmental factors such as a distinct business format, sufficient business information,
business flexibility that is able to fit in any situation, having good access to ICT, able to
focus on cost competitiveness to compete with rivals, financial stability, a good business
operation management and wide business networking with various parties that may directly
or indirectly influence their business operation. In which the women entrepreneurs should
have prepared precautionary steps during the decision-making process of entering any new
international market. Then, women entrepreneurs should possess with suitable decision-
making strategy, controlling strategy and leadership styles. Lastly, the outcome of research
is regarding on the support from spouse and family on the women’s business. Most of the
women entrepreneur that participate in this study are getting support such as moral and
advice from spouse and family for their business and some of the women entrepreneurs are

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not. But they believes in themselves and they also have achieved the success in their
business without men supports.

In my opinion this article is very useful. This is because the issues and challenges facing
by Malaysian women entrepreneurs that have been stated clearly by the authors in which
women entrepreneurs were dealing with gender inequality, cultural values, having a lot of
responsibility which lead to the problems of their business. It happened Women
entrepreneurs tend to keep their business small as they want to ensure that they can do the
house chores while they run the business. They are not fully desire to participate in business
activities in order to avoid conflict between their responsibilities and business.

In my opinion, the strength of this article is that the study is using qualitative methods
which researchers conducting face-to-face interview with the women entrepreneurs which
they want to have the high accuracy of the understanding in order for the researchers to
understand on how the Malaysian women entrepreneurs can penetrate the international
market. Researcher were not using the quantitative methods as it will not clearly address
the issues and challenges that facing by women entrepreneurs to enter the international
market. Authors are not being biased towards women and men entrepreneurs which authors
keep giving their reasons on why actually the issues and challenges of women entrepreneurs
emerge in entering global market occurred.

My comments on the weaknesses of this article is that in this study most of participants
were married in which their roles were different from the single women entrepreneurs.
Authors likely mentioned the issues and challenges that occurred to married women
entrepreneurs but not to the single women entrepreneurs. Single women entrepreneur
especially that do not have children, they can give their effort all out in order to make sure
that their business can be expanded and ensuring that their business can penetrate the
international market. In this article, authors are not stating the issues and challenges for
single women entrepreneurs to enter the international market as most of participants are
married.

In order to support my opinion on the strength of article, it can be prove that women
entrepreneur does facing with issues and challenges such as gender inequality, a lot
responsibility and so on. For example, cultural issue that is gender inequality. Most women
in the workforce are in the category of low paid work and that women only own 15 per cent
of business enterprises in Malaysia. As such, women entrepreneurs generally earn lower
revenues and less income than male. Compared to men, women entrepreneurs encounter
many barriers to become successful (Wendy Ming Yen Teoh Siong, 2014). According to
the Asia-Pacific Human Development Report (2010), Malaysian women can only access
to 0.2 bank loans (within the scale of 0-full and 1-impossible) if compared with other. East
Asian countries like Japan, Korea, Thailand, Philippines and Myanmar where women can
have access to full bank loans. Culturally, women are considered less capable than men and
therefore they are seen of not deserving the same opportunities. This is especially true for
single mothers where their involvement in entrepreneurship is often prejudiced because of

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 the perceived lack of formal education in management and other business skills (Wendy
Ming Yen Teoh Siong, 2014). Other than that, the same woman is responsible for
household chores and childcare back at home. There is no doubt that Malaysian women are
ranked as the 16th most stressed in the world because their spouses expect them to take up
housework and childcare after getting home from work without easing the burden of their
wives. Women entrepreneurs does carry a lot of responsibilities in which they have to focus
on their family and business at the same time. Work–family conflict is one of the major
reasons why women entrepreneurs fail in conducting their businesses. This conflict often
happens particularly amongst home-based businesses where there is a lack of support from
spouses due to over commitment of work than with family. The situation is expected to
worsen as the number of micro-enterprises grows in the country. These can be conclude
that Malaysian women are expected to lead as if they were mothers or teachers, rather than
taking on what is perceived to be the more traditional masculine role of formal leadership.
Worst still, many micro-enterprises owned by Malaysian women entrepreneurs are often
taken over by their spouses when the businesses grow into larger enterprises (Wendy Ming
Yen Teoh Siong, 2014). This shown it is true women entrepreneur felt stress because of
work either work-family or business which tend to keep their business small. At least
making a small profit then it is fine for them or if their business goes well, their spouses
might take over on it.

As the weaknesses of this article is that authors not highlighting the point of single women
entrepreneur issues and challenges, it can be prove that single women entrepreneur could
be more successful after dealing with differ issues from married women entrepreneur. For
example, Naelofar Hijab’s Brand which lead by Neelofa who is successful single women
entrepreneur and celebrity in Malaysia. According to Nurfatin Afiqah, (2018), Naelofar
Hijab often facing an issue with plagiarized. However, Naelofar Hijab always come up with
new collection so that they are not overtaken by them and Naelofar Hijab keep faster than
plagiaristic. Neelofa and her team decide to revolutionize and simplify modest fashion, to
make shawls more practical and easier to wear. This shown that single women
entrepreneurs like Neelofa had given her best effort when she is facing with the problem.

CONCLUSION

In conclusion, women entrepreneur in Malaysia were struggle to deal with issues and
challenges in entering the international market. It is widely identified issue that women
have different strengths, characteristics and weaknesses compared to men. Thus, Malaysian
women entrepreneurs need to have a critical understanding of the entrepreneurial
orientation for them to succeed in their ventures regardless of size and location (Isa,
Jaganathan, Ahmdon, & Ibrahim, 2018). Before they could entering to international market,
they need to face issues that occurred in local market first. In order for them to establish
their business, they must overcome those issues and challenges in local market before they
can move forward to penetrate the international market.

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 REFERENCES

Isa, F. M., Jaganathan, M., Ahmdon, M. A. S., & Ibrahim, H. M. (2018). Malaysian Women
Entrepreneurs: Some Emerging Issues and Challenges of Entering Global Market.
International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences, 8(12), 1596–
1605.

Ismail, N. A. B., Kanesan, S. K., & Krishnan, K. (2018). An Analysis of Market Segmentation
(Naelofar Hijab’s Brand). International Journal of Business and Management Invention
(IJBMI) , 81–85. doi: 10.35631/ijemp.26003
Wendy Ming Yen Teoh Siong Choy Chong , (2014),"Towards strengthening the development of
women entrepreneurship in Malaysia", Gender in Management: An International Journal,
Vol. 29 Iss 7 pp. 432 - 453

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APPENDICES

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