Factors Influencing Entrepreneurship Development

In term of culture and history from the past, entrepreneurship was formed in many decades ago, especially during British colonial masters (Ariff & Abubakar, 2003). During that period, there was a rule economic activity set up by British for the multiracial community in Malaya. The rules required every single race runs the specific activities and this rule had made them became expert in certain area. For example, the Chinese community had run the business activity such mining and they lived in town area. Meanwhile, the Malay community did well in plantation activity and lived in the rural areas. Last but not least is Indian community who is normally worked as labors in estates and some of them worked as government servants.

When time goes on,
the entrepreneurship activity is becoming popular among the Bumiputera and they seriously involve in this area and make it as their primary profession in seeking for money. There are several reasons why Malaysians seriously involve in entrepreneurship activities nowadays. Previous years which is on 1997, there was economic crisis occurred in Malaysia and other Asian countries. This scenario gives negative impact on Malaysia economic since the currency rate of Malaysian Ringgit decreased. When this situation happened, Malaysia faced many problems such as many companies and private sectors could not afford to pay for salary. Other reason is unemployment rate increased that caused a lot of graduates could not get the job. The alternative way they can do is by involving into the entrepreneurship to earn money for living purposes.

The obvious example that we can see in Malaysia is the entrepreneurship activities done by Kelantanese’s women in Siti Khadijah market. They are the traditional entrepreneurs in Malaysia which are among the early newcomers in this field. Nowadays, women are increasingly involved in entrepreneurship especially in beauty and food industries. Besides getting skills and support from government agencies, many of them are knowledgeable in financing, accounting, marketing and other related business needs. This is because they are coming from high education levels and they have learned a lot before starting the business. In addition, they are also high experience employees who resign from the private and public sectors in order to run their own business.

Knowledge Economy Master Plan is very helpful and entrepreneurship friendly. This plan can be a direction in determining the funding and what economic activity that entrepreneurs should involve in. This plan also develops the information and knowledge in business. Therefore, entrepreneurs could focus on specific areas that fit to the demand and current economic environment. Moreover, they can reduce the risk of lose that is unpredictable. There are several aspects that influence entrepreneurship develops in Malaysia such as innovation, technology, location and so forth.

Lately, Government of Malaysia deeply encourages entrepreneurship activities for this country’s development. Therefore, Malaysia holds various programmes and activities so that this effort successful. There are several ministries which agencies are established to give support to entrepreneurs in order to offer them variety of facilities and help. These ministries and agencies emphasize on SME industries because those entrepreneurs needs extra training and financing facilities. They are also a group of entrepreneurs who lack of capital, lack of expertise and technologies. Small and Medium Scale Industry Development Corporation (SMIDEC) is established to overcome those issues. This ministry plays important role in focusing to entrepreneurs’ development especially for Bumiputera. There is a variety of programmes and strategies are set up to with support from other agencies. For example, MECD builds industrial and commercial zones and also well-planning town to run the strategic businesses. This is important to provide conducive business environment (Ariff & Abubakar, 2003).

In addition, under Ninth Malaysia Plan (9MP), training and education are given to entrepreneurs who lack of skills and do not have any basic skill in business. Agencies provide a lot of courses for candidates to participate and they will be given certificate or diploma for their involvement. There are various economic areas that can be explored such as beauty care, tourism and hospitality, reflexology, automotive repair and so forth. Majlis Amanah Raya (MARA) is responsible in providing training and education to candidates. Moreover, 9MP provides training from various stages of education which is from secondary schools to colleges and universities. MARA switches vocational training to entrepreneurial training. This strategy is to achieve the government objective which is to produce 11000 entrepreneurs in 28 business fields (The Star Online, 2007).