Title: Social network, prior working experience, start-up experience and access to support: the case of the Malaysian start-up industry

Authors: Daisy Mui Hung Kee; Sabai Khin; Theresa C.F. Ho

Addresses: School of Management, Universiti Sains Malaysia, 11800 Penang, Malaysia ' School of Management, Universiti Sains Malaysia, 11800 Penang, Malaysia ' Azman Hashim International Business School, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Malaysia

Abstract: It has been proven from the resource-based view that start-up entrepreneurs need access to resources through supports to find a successful venture. Many nascent entrepreneurs in many countries still lack access to considerable support. Start-ups that have no access to institutional support usually had a higher rate of failure compared to those who did. This paper intends to examine social network as a crucial contributor to getting access to start-up support in terms of technology, market, finance and soft-related support in the context of Malaysian start-up. This paper also intends to examine whether start-up owners' working experience and start-up experience moderate the impact of the social network on access to support. This study employed PLS-SEM for analysing responses from 500 start-up firms in Malaysia. This study provides valuable implications while offering a new research direction towards developing an extended theory of social capital by linking social network to start-up support.

Keywords: social network; prior working experience; start-up experience; access to support; Malaysia; start-up; finance-related support; market-related support; technology-related support; soft-related support.

DOI: 10.1504/IJBG.2021.115295

International Journal of Business and Globalisation, 2021 Vol.28 No.1/2, pp.16 - 37

Received: 02 Jan 2019
Accepted: 01 May 2019
Published online: 27 May 2021 *

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