Journal of Entrepreneurship, Business and Economics

1-31

Authors: David Leong

Disequilibrium and complexity are the distinguishing characteristics of entrepreneurial phenomena. How do the entrepreneurs arbitrage, leverage and benefit in the disequilibria and what spur them to action? The force that drives entrepreneurial ventures, from creation to sustaining through to exit, and then through innovation to extend the game or recreate another play is an imminent force that holds and sustains entrepreneurial momentum. Entrepreneurial energy, a coined terminology in this paper, is that endogenous force. There are scarce relevant researches. In particular, there is no specific mention of the “entrepreneurial energy” in the theory of entrepreneurship. The closest proxy is entrepreneurial passions. Passion cannot be held in equal doses throughout the venture pathway. John Maynard Keynes coined the phrase "animal spirits" in his 1936 book “The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money”. He used the term to describe emotions that influence human economic behaviour. Animal spirits create an ambience of trust and faith and are necessary for human actions, more than quantitative logic. Keynes felt animal spirits were needed as a goad to economic action rather than inaction. Schumpeter came up with the German word Unternehmergeist, meaning entrepreneur-spirit, adding that these individuals controlled the economy because they are responsible for delivering innovation and technological change. Whether its entrepreneurial energy, animal spirit or entrepreneur-spirit, it is a force that needs reckoning with in entrepreneurship study. Entrepreneurship is a science of turbulence and change, not continuity. A certain force causes turbulence. Such is the force in entrepreneurship like the wind is felt but not seen through the leaves' ruffle but not the wind itself. This paper will demonstrate that entrepreneurial energy can be better understood if examined through the lens of complexity and quantum science to address this omission. The indeterminacy in uncertainties and chaos theories best describe the dynamically complex, fast, volatile, uncertain disrupted, diverse, ambiguous, hyper-turbulent and hyperconnected entrepreneurial ecosystem. This paper contributes to entrepreneurship research by developing a complexity-based and uncertainty-based definition of entrepreneurial energy. This energy will be referred to in the context of the entrepreneurial ecosystem (space) where the entrepreneurs (object) exist over time. Building on this definition, it connects the research on the entrepreneur to venture-level complexity and entrepreneurial multi-finalities/pathways. It explores how these force originates and is sustained- that will influence entrepreneurial emergence and continuation- from the intentionality of entrepreneurs and the coherence of entrepreneurial activities, through the exploration and exploitation of perceived opportunities within the entrepreneurial ecosystem. Beyond theory development, it explores how scholars can examine entrepreneurial energy as a complex play of forces through interpretivist methods. This paper has implications for entrepreneurs and policymakers.

82-120

Authors: Shanmuganathan Palanisamy, Shankar Chelliah, Rajendran Muthuveloo

The purpose of the study is to enhance organizational performance among the SMEs in Malaysia in the digital age, particularly the manufacturing sector, which has an important contribution to the Malaysian economy. This study attempts to provide empirical evidence on the relationship between the four dimensions of talent farming and organizational performance in response to previous scholars' call on the influence of talent on SMEs' organizational performance. The dimensions considered in the study are talent harnessing, talent acquisition, talent retention and talent displacement. A total of 157 responses from a cross-sectional survey from Malaysian manufacturing SMEs were investigated using SPSS software version 24 and Partial Least Squares-Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM). The findings reveal that talent retention and talent displacement has significant influence organizational performance, but talent harnessing and talent acquisition have no influence on organizational performance. This research highlights the importance of talent retention and talent displacement by SME owners or leaders compared to investing on internal talent harnessing and acquiring external talent to embrace and develop their skills as a crucial step towards achieving sustainable performance for their companies. The paper provides strategic insights, practical knowledge and policies that assist SMEs in the manufacturing sector to strategies to explore another alternative approach to prepare well for the digital competencies workforce in the digital age. The novelty of this study to assist SMEs in the manufacturing sector to understand better talent farming and its important approach in formulating effective human capital strategy. The dimension of Talent Farming and conceptual research framework was chosen and formulated based on I-TOP Strategic Agility Model and Dynamic Capability Theory, respectively. The empirical analysis and the tentative conceptual framework make an important contribution towards a demand-led policy framework in the area of digital talent competencies to support for Manufacturing SMEs to overcome the talent shortage in Malaysia. The contribution and limitations of the research are discussed, and recommendations for future research are also presented.

163-201

Authors: Hooi Gee Koay, Rajendran Muthuveloo

Organisational performance has become the main issue as organisations are struggling for business sustainability. Organisations have not achieved the expected organisational performance in the dynamic environment. This research aims to examine the influence of disruptive innovation, organisational capabilities, and people on organisational performance. A quantitative study was designed, and one hundred and twenty-one (121) data among organisations involved in the manufacturing of electrical and electronics (E&E) products in Malaysia were gathered through a structured questionnaire using stratified sampling techniques. Data gathered were analysed with SPSS software version 24 and Smart Partial Least Squares-Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) version 3.2.7. The result demonstrated that disruptive innovation, organisational capabilities, and people significantly influence organisational performance. From the academic aspect, the conceptual framework articulated based on the research gap, the I-TOP Strategic Agility model, and dynamic capabilities theory provides more insights into optimising organisational performance. In addition, this study measured organisational performance from the perspective of happiness that comprises of employee happiness, customer happiness, and shareholder happiness. Practitioners could utilise this study's findings to formulate a more effective strategy to optimise their organisational performance that is critical for business sustainability.

230-274

Authors: Junshuai Cheng, Shankar Chelliah, Ai Ping Teoh

This paper aims to establish a comprehensive framework for relationships between parent and subsidiary (subsidiary autonomy, subsidiary position, organizational trust) on knowledge transfer efficiency. Then shed light on how the long-ignored characteristics of the subsidiary (characteristics of the knowledge transfer participant) play a role in the knowledge transfer of MNCs. The study highlights and tests the influence of two parts by subjecting a dataset of 212 Chinese MNCs to a Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) to analysis: one is the impact of relationships between parent-subsidiary (subsidiary autonomy, subsidiary position, organizational trust) on the knowledge transfer efficiency. The other is the subsidiary characteristics (subsidiary age, subsidiary size) moderates the relationship between them. The robust results indicate that subsidiary autonomy, subsidiary position, organizational trust have a significant positive influence on the knowledge transfer efficiency of Chinese MNCs. As well as one of the subsidiary characteristics (subsidiary age) only moderates the relationship between subsidiary autonomy, organizational trust and knowledge transfer efficiency. While the other characteristic (subsidiary size) has no moderation. The findings indicate that the ignored subsidiary characteristics (subsidiary age, subsidiary size) have some moderations in the knowledge transfer efficiency, and it is useful to help MNCs improve knowledge transfer efficiency by copying and creating the implicit meaning of characteristic.