Attitude, entrepreneurial competencies, financial literacy and business sustainability in the urban informal sector of Malaysia

Sustainability has become fashionable in entrepreneurship and business, yet its meaning is often elusive. Some research restricts sustainability to environmental issues, and others use it synonymously with corporate social responsibility. This field of study is not only limited to empirical studies but also lacks theoretical combinations from a different discipline, which leads to more attention on empirically dynamic studies focusing on a sequence of complex factors that determine business sustainability. Among these, attitude, entrepreneurial competencies, and financial literacy are determinants of business sustainability which were needed further study because of the ambiguous results of prior findings. Thus, this study aims to identify the relationship between attitude, entrepreneurial competencies, financial literacy, and business sustainability. Also, this study intends to examine the mediating effect of entrepreneurial competencies in the relationship between attitude and business sustainability and further inspect moderating role of financial literacy to the entrepreneurial competencies and business sustainability. This study follows a quantitative research approach. Data were collected purposively from a sample of 374 owner-managers in the urban informal sector in Malaysia using a self-administered survey questionnaire. Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) has been employed as a statistical technique and Analysis of Moment Structure (AMOS) to analyze the data. Analysis results revealed positive and significant relationships between attitude and business sustainability, attitude and entrepreneurial competencies, entrepreneurial competencies, and business sustainability. Moreover, the influence of entrepreneurial competencies has partially mediated attitude and business sustainability. Furthermore, the role of financial literacy as a moderated found that the relationship between entrepreneurial competencies and business sustainability was partially moderated and stronger when financial literacy is low than when it is high. It is hoped that the business field can embrace this framework as a business model and contribute to social and economic initiatives. Besides, the underpinning of Lucas’ theory on attitude, entrepreneurial competencies, financial literacy, and business sustainability identified that the determinant factors could boost longevity. Meanwhile, the study's findings invoke research on the entrepreneurship domain, mainly focusing on the attitude, entrepreneurial competencies, financial literacy, and business sustainability that can be viewed as novel contributions in the entrepreneurship domain where these factors could be applied in other similar contexts, especially in Malaysia.