Spouse’s support for Malay women entrepreneurs: challenges for micro enterprises in Kelantan, Malaysia

Time has changed. So has the gender relationship. Men are expected to share in the household chores and family upbringing. The emancipation and empowerment of the women have allowed them to venture into the world of business. Social construct postulate that that behind every successful man is a woman, but surely behind every successful CEO mother is a man who is a caregiver and a supporter too. There is a knowledge gap in which not enough research has been done to understand this social phenomenon. Thus, the objective of this research is to understand and seek an explanation for the phenomenon of the husband rendering his supports to his entrepreneur wife, and how his wife perceives such helps that enables her to sustain, and ultimately attain her dreams. This is a qualitative research adopted Case Study method and utilised in-depth interview as the main source of data collection. This research applied a three-stage data collection as proposed by Yin (1994, 2013), and 2- stage data analysis process as proposed by Saldana (2016). Five micro entrepreneurs women and their spouses in Kelantan were interviewed. The philosophical underpinning in this research is anchored on four much- discussed theories that have been identified to have influenced the couple’s behaviour, they are: 1) the gender role theory, 2) the time available theory, 3) the relative resource theory and 4) the marriage contract theory. The discussions and the available literature on these theories, epistemologically, are mainly based on the western phenomenon, which holds a different ontological perspective given the local Eastern and Malay cultural context, thus, produces a different outcome. This study reveals such differences in which it found that changes in the gender role perception among the couples have a greater effect on the husband’s willingness to ‘stand behind’ the wife’s endeavour as compared to the other three theories. This study also notes that the Malay culture and traditions have a moderating effect on the practices as proposed by the above theories. The study also reveals that very little is understood about polygamy couples on the supports render by the husbands.