Malaysian SMEs’ Strategic Orientation and Access to Fintech Financing: Moderated by Entrepreneurial Innovativeness

Abstract

With the advent of Fintech financing, innovativeness plays a significant role in enhancing Small and medium-sized enterprises' (SMEs) access to financing. Three comprehensive constructs, namely, market orientation, learning orientation and technology orientation, are adopted to present a holistic picture of the effect of strategic orientation on Malaysian SMEs’ access to Fintech financing, moderated by entrepreneurial innovativeness. This study adopted a survey research design based on 221 Malaysian SMEs. The results indicate that strategic orientation influence SMEs’ access to Fintech financing. However, the moderating impact of entrepreneurial innovativeness is insignificant in the relationship between strategic orientation and access to Fintech financing. Technological innovation is re-shaping commerce and the economy across all sectors. SMEs need to access external sources of information, knowledge, expertise and technology in order to build their own innovative capability for accessi