Empowering the poor in economic development: how personality, knowledge, and mindset influence home-based businesses?

Malaysian government has taken many efforts to help low-income group (B40) to increase their income by at least RM2,000 every month. Business is a very potential field to help increase income and reduce poverty. Many B40 women have been involved in business either as a main source of income or as an additional source of income for their families or themselves. The business sector run by these women entrepreneurs directly creates new job opportunities and increases the country's income and economic activity. There are several factors in determining their success. These include having interest, motivation, a confident personality, willingness to take risks, past work experience, and innovative ideas. Thus, the purpose of this study is to examine the influence of personal factors such as personality, knowledge, and mindset on the performance of home-based businesses owned by women entrepreneurs from low-income group (B40). The questionnaires were distributed to a total of 300 respondents using a purposive sampling. The data analysis in this research is done with the Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) method using AMOS software. The findings have discovered direct relationships between personality, knowledge, mindset and business performance and entrepreneur’s mindset mediates the relationships between personality, knowledge, business performance. Therefore, the entrepreneurial characteristics are important and must be present in every entrepreneur to achieve success.