The Relationship Between Islamic Microfinance and Women Entrepreneurship: A Case Study in Malaysia

This article aims to examine the intention to use Islamic microfinance by women entrepreneurs in Malaysia. Microfinance plays a significant role in developing the modern economy in the world by alleviating poverty, creating employment, and empowering women in society. The framework was built on Innovation and Diffusion Theory and Planned Behaviour Theory. The present study has adopted a quantitative research method, which focused on cross-sectional research design to address this problem. Primary data was collected and processed by using a 5-point Likert scale. For this research, a total of 178 questionnaires were distributed among women owners of micro-enterprises in Malaysia by using area collection sampling. To analyze the data, the SmartPLS 3 software package was used. This study developed seven hypotheses, all which have been supported both directly, indirectly, and mediated. This result will be beneficial in assisting policymakers, academics and future researchers who must consider the supported variables. Thus, the study contributes to developing a unique framework to assist women-owned micro-enterprise to success. It will be beneficial for practitioners to enhance women micro-enterprise success rate as well. Indeed, all of the grounded methods have implications both in theory and their main application for the business in SMEs.