EXPLORATORY FACTOR ANALYSIS OF ENTREPRENEURIAL ORIENTATION IN THE CONTEXT OF BANGLADESHI SMALL AND MEDIUM ENTERPRISES (SMES)

Generally, Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) is required to expose the appropriate items for using in the research instrument. Thus, this study takes steps to develop and validate instrument of Entrepreneurial Orientation (EO) construct through EFA particularly in the context of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in Bangladesh. This study is exercised EFA as it is far different from previous studies in terms of socio-economic, racial and cultural status and some items of the previous studies are no longer suitable for current research. More importantly, maximum number of previous studies examined only innovativeness, pro-activeness, and risk-taking as the dimensions of EO. However, quite a few researchers concentrating on other substantial attributes of EO. Hence, there is still no common agreement among researchers as the number of dimensions as well as items should be employed to measure EO. So, this study has examined innovativeness, pro-activeness, risk-taking, and resource-leveraging as the core dimensions to measure EO and also presenting an instrument of EO. This study adopted a cross-sectional research design, while quantitative data was collected from 384 SMEs across eight states in Bangladesh, using structured survey. Based on the reliability testing, this study finalized the instrument to twelve (12) items yielding three (3) dimensions, i.e., innovativeness (3 items), pro-activeness (3 items) risk-taking (3 items), and resource-leveraging (3 items). In this regard, researchers calculated the value of internal reliability (i.e., Cronbach Alpha value) for the current EO instrument. This study explained in detail the procedures for carrying out EFA analysis for EO construct. Future researchers could further extend the instrument presented in this study by cross-examining across the underdeveloped, developing and developed countries.  Article visualizations

Efikasi Kendiri Guru sebagai Mediator antara Kepimpinan Transformasi dengan Pengurusan Pengintegrasian Teknologi

Kajian ini bertujuan untuk menilai efikasi kendiri guru sebagai pengantara (mediator) dalam hubungan antara kepimpinan transformasi pengetua dan pengintegrasian ICT dalam kalangan guru sekolah menengah di negeri Sabah. Kajian kuantitatif ini melibatkan 497 responden dalam kalangan guru di negeri Sabah. Analisis menggunakan kaedah pemodelan persamaan berstruktur (SEM) dalam perisian IBM-SPSS-AMOS 28.0. Kajian ini mendapati efikasi kendiri menjadi pengantara (mediator) dalam hubungan antara kepimpinan transformasi dan pengintegrasian ICT dalam kalangan guru di negeri Sabah. Dapatan kajian juga mendapati kedua-dua laluan tidak langsung adalah signifikan manakala laluan langsung adalah tidak signifikan. Maka dapat disimpulkan bahawa jenis pengantaraan yang berlaku dalam model ini ialah pengantaraan penuh kerana kesan langsung adalah tidak signifikan. Dapatan kajian ini boleh memberi hala tuju yang lebih jelas kepada penggubal dasar dalam penambahbaikan sistem pendidikan kebangsaan

Ramification of crowdfunding on Bangladeshi entrepreneur’s self-efficacy

The novel funding sources turn out to be important for the Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) sector all over the world especially after 2007-2008 world financial crisis. Thus, to develop a new business idea and start-ups, SMEs need a sufficient amount of capital. However, after the financial crisis in 2008, SME sector faced the challenges of attracting new capital. Therefore, an innovative method of fundraising for SME was introduced as crowdfunding. Crowdfunding indicates financing a project or an idea via the internet owing the help from the many investors or donors of a society. Since there are limited works about the influence of Crowdfunding on Entrepreneur Self-efficacy (ESE), hence, to minimize the research gap and to achieve the objective of the study, we conduct a quantitative research among 190 entrepreneurs in Bangladesh using crowdfunding based on Social Cognitive theory. The data were analyzed using Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) in IBM-SPSS-Amos 25.0 and the stated hypotheses were tested. The study found a direct and positive effect of Crowdfunding on Entrepreneur’s Self-efficacy (β=0.924, P=.001). Overall, the result has landed support for crowdfunding, which indicates that it can influence on self-efficacy of entrepreneur. In order to determine the need of crowdfunding, we have explained and statistically demonstrated how crowdfunding can provide a supplementary channel where firms can gain finance and to create self-efficacy of entrepreneurs through exploiting the potential of internet