Exploring Stratification and
Entrepreneurs can create
Entrepreneurship: African
American Women
Entrepreneurs Redefine
Success in Growth Ventures
An Empirical Study of Success
Factors of Women
Entrepreneurs in Southern
Region in Malaysia
Environmental, Personality and
Motivational Factors: A
Comparison Study between
Women Entrepreneurs and
Women Non Entrepreneurs in
Malaysia
Development of Women
Entrepreneurs: The Case of
Malaysia
HEORISING A FRAMEWORK OF
FACTORS INFLUENCING
PERFORMANCE OF WOMEN
ENTREPRENEURS IN MALAYSIA
Dr. Siong-Choy, Chong
ntrepreneurship can be a means of social mobility.
ventures that create wealth and allow the entrepreneur and their families to move
from lower status positions to higher status positions. Second, entrepreneurship
can play a role in addressing the challenges of fractious, stratified society. Typically,
this takes on the form of programs supporting entrepreneurship (self-employment)
as an alternative to traditional labor markets. A second approach to meeting the
challenge is entrepreneurship that uses market processes to directly solve social
problems (as in social entrepreneurship).
the important determinants of success of women entrepreneurs that family
support, social ties and internal motivation affect positively and significantly to the
success of women entrepreneurs in the small business. Research has shown that in
the past, women rarely ventured into business not because of lack of interest but
because of lack of opportunities.
Entreprenership has been observed as one of the important factors that help to lift
the economy of a nation. Due to the fact that women play an equal role in the
development of a country. Psychological research in entrepreneurship has made
attempts to understand the entrepreneurial personality. The trait approaches that
were adopted have been able to identify certain strong personal qualities of
entrepreneurs but an emphatic conclusion on the entrepreneurial personality has
not evolved so far (Gartner, 1988). However, as entrepreneurial activities originate
from individuals, a nominal understanding of their personality traits with their skills
and respective background is crucial for the development of a comprehensive
theory (Ray and Ramachandran, 1996). Apart from personality studies, motivation
factors play an important role in developing entrepreneurs. According to Hisrich
(1986), women entrepreneurs possess very different motivations compared to their
male counterparts. Thus, the need to determine the motivational basis in women
entrepreneurs is also crucial. Many studies also suggest that certain environmental
factors and life experiences could lead to entrepreneurship. T
the factors which contributed to the success of the women entrepreneurs included
individual factors, organisation and the environment. In addition, the element of
interest and a strong sense of passion towards their entrepreneurial career, their
bravery in undertaking risk, self-confidence and positive attitude were the most
important factors that had played an important influence on the success of women
entrepreneurs.
Recognising the importance of the emerging women entrepreneurs in creating a
vibrant and dynamic economy for the nation, the Malaysian Government has been
actively promoting women entrepreneurship towards realising Malaysia’s Vision
2020. However, notwithstanding the importance of this area, surprisingly little
research has been undertaken to determine the factors influencing performance of
women entrepreneurs, particularly in Malaysia. To close this gap, an in-depth
literature survey was conducted to identify a comprehensive list of factors
influencing the performance of Malaysian women entrepreneurs. The literature
suggests that social psychological and organisational approaches are widely used to
explore and analyse the relationship between the influence of women’s individual
characteristics, parental influence, their business management and business
strategies, goals and motives, networking and entrepreneurial orientation towards
their business performance. This resulted in the development of a comprehensive
theoretical framework which provides significant insights related to women
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entrepreneurship practices and their performance levels in Malaysia.

Factors Contributing to the
Success of Women
Entrepreneurs in Sri Lanka
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