Keywords

Entrepreneurs Success, Women Entrepreneurs, Economic Development.

Introduction

Malay women entrepreneurs’ success is among the recent issue nowadays. It has been studied widely considering factors that contributing to the success of Malay women entrepreneurs in Malaysia. As Malaysia is moving forward as a developing country by 2020, there are still lacks of achievements particularly in the development of Malaysia economics. Among the factor that is important to the success of entrepreneurs is the alertness (Shamudeen, Keat & Hassan, 2017; Frese & Gielnik,2014;Storr & John, 2011). It is important to ensure that the Malay women entrepreneurs survive and success in the business as Malay is the majority ethnic in Malaysia and women are the important group of gender that indispensable to the economic growth of a country. As to facing the challenging future nowadays, the finding of this study may provide significant contributions in the entrepreneurship research mainly in Malay women entrepreneurs study and issues. Moreover, the outcomes of this study are to provide sources in establishing the new and best strategies in developing Malay women entrepreneurs in Malaysia and the economics of Malay ethnic as overall in the preparation of incoming fifth industrial revolution (IR5).

Malay Women Entrepreneurs’ Success

Success is a term that show an achievement or opposite the failure. Success could be defined as achievement through measurement of performance, or satisfaction in individual life. Several researches had studied on success ( Wille, et al., 2012; Poh Cheng 2010; Ballout 2008) and women entrepreneurs’ success (Johnson-Lutz 2014; Al-Alak & Al-Haddad 2010; Hakala 2007).

Entrepreneurial Alertness

Alertness or opportunity recognition were introduced and studied by Kirzner (1962,1973,1979). Identification of an entrepreneurial opportunity has been indicated to be a fundamental entrepreneurial behavior. According to Gaglio & Katz (2001), entrepreneurial alertness, is a unique set of skills involving perceived processing of information which has been identified as an intellectual engine driving the identification of opportunity.

Work-family Conflict

Over the years, academic attention towards work-family conflict (WFC) issues has been
constantly growing due to the socio-economic changes occurring in society (De Vita, et al., 2013). Hsu, et al. (2016) found out that the female entrepreneurs were positively have exit intentions (in business) whenever there is a family to business or business to family interference.

Figure 1 shows the proposed theoretical framework in this study. Three hypothesis were developed to answer the objectives of the study. The first objective is to determine the significant influence between alertness and Malay women entrepreneurs’ success (H1). Second objective is to determine the significant influence between the work-family conflict and Malay women entrepreneurs’ success (H2) while the third objective is to analyze the moderating effect of work-family conflict toward the significant relationship between alertness and Malay women entrepreneurs’ success (H3). Theoretically this research describe and offer insights on the importance of alertness and impact of work-family conflict on Malay women entrepreneurs’ success. This research, also reinforce the significance of linkages between alertness and Malay women entrepreneurs’ success.

Methodology

The instruments used in this study were adopted from the past studies. The dependent variable (success) contain 19 items and consists of six dimensions adopted from Lau, et al. (2007). The independent variable (alertness) was adopted from Kirzner (1973) and consists of 13 items from three dimensions while the work-family conflict consists of 5 items adopted from Netemeyer, et al. (1996). The data was collected through the stratified random sampling method according to the 14 states in Malaysia.

Results and Discussion

220 data were collected among the successful Malay women entrepreneurs registered under the Company Commission Malaysia (CCM). About 22.7% of the total respondents was found to be in the age category of 21 to 30 years-old, which represents the youngest age group. 32.3% fall within the age group of 41 to 50 years old, while another 31.8% are within the age range of 31 to 40. Only 13.2% of the respondents are more than 51 years of age. Majority (65.5%) were married while 10.9% are single and 23.6% are widowed/divorced. The data were analyzed through the SPSS and Smart PLS 3.0.

The measurement model is important to ensure the validation process of the data in the study. All the items’ loadings are exceeded 0.6 minimum score (Becker, et al., 2012). Items with loadings below 0.6 were deleted (A1 & SUCC2). The model was analyzed using the second order approach (reflective-reflective). The result of the measurement model is as shown as in Table 1.

Table 1 Results of the Measurement Model
Constructs
1st Order	2nd Order	Items	Loadings	CA	CR	AVE	No. of Indicators
Scanning & Search (S&S)		A2	0.654	0.783	0.851	0.536	5(6)
		A3	0.717
		A4	0.647
		A5	0.813
		A6	0.824
Association and Connection (A&C)		A7	0.836	0.746	0.854	0.662	3(3)
		A8	0.768
		A9	0.835
Evaluation and Judgement (E&J)		A10	0.799	0.754	0.844	0.576	4(4)
		A11	0.715
		A12	0.803
		A13	0.714
	Alertness	(S&S)	0.774	0.852	0.862	0.676
		(A&C)	0.819
		(E&J)	0.87
	Work-Family Conflict (WFC)	WFC1	0.898	0.938	0.86	0.558	5(5)
		WFC2	0.834
		WFC3	0.836
		WFC4	0.943
		WFC5	0.836
Financial		SUCC1	0.737	0.819	0.881	0.651	4(5)
		SUCC3	0.831
		SUCC4	0.85
		SUCC5	0.802
Career Satisfaction		SUCC6	0.896	0.752	0.89	0.801	2(2)
		SUCC7	0.895
Social Reputation		SUCC10	0.847	0.784	0.874	0.698	3(3)
		SUCC8	0.81
		SUCC9	0.848
Social Recognition		SUCC11	0.918	0.798	0.908	0.832	2(2)
		SUCC12	0.906
Social Status		SUCC 13	0.744	0.744	0.841	0.573	4(4)
		SUCC14	0.816
		SUCC15	0.833
		SUCC16	0.616
Perceived Career Achievement		SUCC17	0.844	0.746	0.854	0.661	3(3)
		SUCC18	0.777
		SUCC19	0.816
	Success	Financial	0.795	0.911	0.897	0.592
		Career Satisfaction	0.745
		Social Reputation	0.85
		Social Recognition	0.767
		Social Status	0.768
		Perceived Career Achievement	0.681

Furthermore, the Heterotrait-Monotrait Ratio (HTMT) of the model shows that all the variables value are below 0.85 (Voorhees, et al., 2015) as shown as in Table 2.

Table 2 Heterotrait Monotrait Ratio
	Alertness	Success	WFC
Alertness
Success	0.480	-	-
WFC	0.100	0.081

The structural model is proceeding after the measurement model had passed all the measurement assessment on the reliability and validity of the construct measures. The structural model with the moderator interaction have been drawn and tested through the bootstrapping process (1000 samples)(Streukens & Werelds, 2016).

Table 3 summarizes the structural model result. The work-family conflict variable was acted as the intervening in the model. The direct relationship between alertness and Malay women entrepreneurs’ success indicated a significant result (t=6.717, ß=0.434) thus supported the hypothesis 1. However the direct relationship between work-family conflict and Malay women entrepreneurs’ success show a non-significant result likewise with the moderating effect of work-family conflict between alertness and success was not significant. Thus, rejected hypothesis 2 and hypothesis 3. Further discussion in the conclusion and recommendation section.

Table 3 Summary of the Structural Model Result and Hypothesis
	Direct effect (ß)	STDEV	t-value	p-value	Result	Hypothesis
ALàSUCC	0.434	0.065	6.717	0.000	Significant	Supported
WFCàSUCC	0.108	0.111	0.977	0.329	Not Significant	Not Supported
AL*WFC*SUCC	-0.247	0.310	0.795	0.427	Not Significant	Not Supported

Conclusion and Recommendations

Alertness is showing a significant influence towards the success of Malay women entrepreneurs. Although the work-family conflict is not significant as the moderator, it is suggested that in future research, the age of the respondents have to be sorted to below 40 as between 20 to 40 years old are most likely to face work-family conflict. In this study, the respondents were not facing the work-family conflict. (Mean=2.83).

The findings of this study would hopefully contribute to the building of new knowledge and a new direction as there is still a paucity of literatures regarding Malay women entrepreneurs’ success. It is hoped that the present study will help to identify new areas for further research, i.e., New variables which have not been identified in the previous studies may be explored and new hypotheses may also be generated for further research on women entrepreneurs and women managers.

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