Abstract

Purpose: It is becoming increasingly hard to ignore the importance of the little and medium enterprises (SME) sector in the financial development of a nation. In view of their increasing importance, this paper intends to identify the factors that influence the success of SMEs in the city of Malaysia. Design: The study embraced a quantitative approach in order to validate the underlying conceptual framework, developed from a systematic literature review, and to increase some bits of knowledge on the perceptions of managers. Questionnaire was distributed to 365 industrial SMEs that were selected from the official website of the Ministry of International Trade and Industry and the Free Industrial Zone Malaysia. Findings and conclusions: Results of the quantitative study validated the underlying conceptual framework. It was discovered that the internal factors, for example, age, size, and area of the business; age, education, family foundation, and experience of the entrepreneur; managerial and utilitarian competences of the entrepreneur; and need for achievement and hazard taking propensity of the entrepreneur were correlated with business success. Then again, accessibility of finance, tax assessment, access to technology, access to networking and access to customers and suppliers were the identified correlated external factors. These findings provided bolster for the development of an underlying contextual model that features the effect of internal and external factors on business success. Limitations: Findings of the study remain limited and ought to be circumspectly interpreted since the perceptions about business success factors, derived from the literature in different contexts, were imposed on respondents. This did not permit an enough understanding of participants#x201F; worldview of the vital factors in the specific context of Malaysia which may be different from other contexts. Originality/Value: This is perhaps among very few studies that address the issue of pri