This article aims to analyze factors impacting international entrepreneurship in Malaysia.
Interviews were conducted with 71 firms, both in the manufacturing sector and the service sector, across the 12 states of Malaysia.
The interviews revealed the reasons these firms internationalised, key success factors, and the barriers to internationalisation including export market attractiveness, government policy, foreign practices being incompatible with domestic business and adapting to foreign market needs.
Due to a lack of resources, firms from West Malaysia were not contacted. West Malaysian firms may well possess characteristics concerning the barriers to internationalisation that are unique to their region.
This article provides insight into the perceptions and decision‐making processes of Malaysian entrepreneurs with regard to the barriers to internationalisation, thereby making a contribution to international business knowledge in a relatively unknown region of the world.
The study findings and interviews showed that in order to encourage and to be successful in international business, government policy must play an active role in promoting, assisting and helping Malaysian firms in terms of financing, training, technology and the offer of lucrative tax concessions so that the domestic firms would be encouraged to engage in international business.
