Entrepreneurial Activity in Malaysia: A Country Level Perspective

Despite being the third largest economy in Southeast Asia, Malaysian entrepreneurial activity is under-reported in the scholarly literature. This book extends such research by examining the impact of entrepreneurship on its economy and evaluating the existing systemic problems. The Malaysian economy has benefited from the density of knowledge-based businesses and utilization of the latest technologies in the manufacturing and digital economies. However, Malaysia faces ongoing challenges, namely concentration of wealth in the city, high regional unemployment and workplace gender inequality. In regional areas, there is an over-reliance on agriculture and necessity based entrepreneurship. Consequently, entrepreneurial activity has been encouraged with the creation of eco-systems, seed corn funding and provision of entrepreneurship education to offer entrepreneurial career choices.

Providing recommendations and best practice for driving entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial behaviours, this contributed volume presents the first opportunity to reflect on both the success stories and systemic problems related to effective entrepreneurial behaviour in a South East Asian context.

Paul Jones is Professor in Entrepreneurship and Innovation at Swansea University's School of Management, UK.

Louisa Huxtable-Thomas is Associate Professor and a founder of the Institute for Entrepreneurial Leadership at Swansea University's School of Management. Combining theories and empirical knowledge from the business, social science, education and psychology disciplines, her work revolves around building resilient leaders and organisations.

Syahira Hamidon is Senior Director in the Ministry of Entrepreneur Development, Malaysia. Her role is to formulate, update, implement and coordinate the national entrepreneurship policy of Malaysia. She is also in charge of matters pertaining to social entrepreneurship development, vendor programmes of key public corporations as well as entrepreneur development and capacity building.

Paul Hannon is Professor and Director of the Institute for Entrepreneurial Leadership at Swansea University, UK. He has helped shape entrepreneurial development as a Chief Executive, Government Adviser, Academic Director and Professor.

Norngaoiny Binti Mohd Tawil is an Associate Professor at Faculty of Engineering and Built Environment, UKM with a PhD in Property Finance from University of Malaya.