Determinants of Business Performance of Malaysian Women Entrepreneurs Under Amanah Ikhtiar Malaysia

Women's involvement in entrepreneurship has become a popular subject of academic research. As such, the Malaysian government has set aside a yearly budget for women’s empowerment as they have vital roles in economic development. Although women’s entrepreneurship is growing, there are still insufficient studies on relationship training, networking, mentoring and microfinance with women’s business performance. Therefore, this study has focused on testing moderators (microfinance). Concerning the literature, four micro-organisation business performance determinants – training, networking, mentoring and microfinance- have been selected. Subsequently, three direct and three indirect hypotheses have been developed. The respondents were Indian women micro-entrepreneurs scheme of the Amanah Ikhtiar Malaysia (AIM) in Peninsular Malaysia. The tools used to measure the variables were adopted from the scales in the literature. Two hundred thirty questionnaires were returned by hand, but only 221 were eligible for PLS-SEM analysis. The findings from empirical research revealed that training, networking, and mentoring had influenced Indian women entrepreneurs’ business performance. Besides, microfinance has moderated the relationship between mentoring and Indian women entrepreneurs’ business performance. Conversely, microfinance did not moderate the relationship between the determinants of training and networking on Indian women entrepreneurs’ business performance. The utilisation of microfinance has contributed to the significance of this study. Apart from that, the findings are useful to financial institutions, other government agencies involved in policymaking, academics, and women micro-entrepreneurs in the financial management of entrepreneurship domain, entrepreneurial management, and entrepreneurs’ business performance.