Sustainable Entrepreneurship in SMEs

Abstract

Objective – Sustainable entrepreneurship is considered to be combined with economic, social, and environmental value creation, and is considered a combination of social enterprise and environmental enterprise. The small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Malaysia are without exception. However, due to the lack of research, the existing literature has not yet provided sufficient explanation for the establishment of sustainable entrepreneurship in Malaysian SMEs. This research included an introduction that gives an overview of the research, continued by the review of existing literature that correlates to the research topic followed by the methodology adopted for this research. Methodology – Specifically, this research extends the Entrepreneurial Event Model to test the proposed framework. To test the research framework and to achieve the research objectives, the survey questionnaire was used to collect the primary data of 200 respondents (entrepreneurs from Malaysian SMEs). The research used Analysis of Moment Structure (AMOS) and Statistical Package of Social Science (SPSS) to encode and analyse the main data collected in this study. Findings – This research's findings revealed that the developed model was sustainable. All the constructs were reliable and valid, and the value was acceptable. The research novelty present in the paper regarding many researchers pay little attention to the key factors that affect the sustainable entrepreneurial ability of SMEs. At this point, this study had proposed a new variable such as environmental awareness and examined its impact on sustainable entrepreneurship performance. Furthermore, the research also provides references for future practical and theoretical contributions. Novelty – This research provides new and important insights for SMEs, entrepreneurs, employees, and institutions through empirical testing of the framework, thereby contributing to knowledge. Type of Paper: Empirical JEL Classification: L21, L26, M19 Keywords: Sustainable Entrepreneurship; Perceived Desirability; Perceived Feasibility; Propensity to Act; Environmental Awareness Reference to this paper should be made as follows: Fong, C.W; Yen, Y.Y; Ramasamy, S. (2022). Sustainable Entrepreneurship in SMEs, J. Bus. Econ. Review, 7(1), 92–102. https://doi.org/10.35609/jber.2022.7.1(4)