The determinants of social enterprise performance in Malaysia: mediating role of social innovation / Putri Aliah Mohd Hidzir

The performance of social enterprises is important in achieving social change by providing new, transformative solutions for social issues. It indicates how social enterprise operates and sustain throughout their operation. While studies on social enterprise have grown in popularity over the years, the factors contributing towards the performance of social enterprise have yet to be fully discovered. In line with the government’s effort in certifying the status of social enterprise through Social Enterprise Accreditation (SEA) in Malaysia, the research objective of this study is to explore the relationship among government support, stakeholder engagement, and earned-income generation towards social enterprise performance. This research also seeks to bridge a gap in the literature by responding to calls for greater attention on social innovation in the context of social entrepreneurship, and therefore the mediation role of social innovation was investigated. Using a quantitative method, data were collected from social enterprises in Malaysia by using the purposive sampling technique. Based on the results, government support showed an insignificant relationship while both stakeholder engagement and earned-income generation were proven to be significant towards social enterprise performance. The study also confirmed the mediating role of social innovation between stakeholder engagement and earned-income generation towards social enterprise performance. The analyses presented in this research would add to the body of knowledge related to social enterprise and can be used by policymakers in planning long-term strategies in terms of assessing, designing, and evaluating policy schemes. Malaysia, like other emerging countries, is grappling with poverty and unemployment. Better performance of social enterprise enables them to signify their social impact, thus contributes towards the development of the country.