Despite the government enormous efforts to propel the development of a credible Malay industrial and commercial community (BCIC), to date, the Malay have yet to achieve the intended target. There are two factors deem crucial to entrepreneurial development that has not been satisfactorily addressed: entrepreneurial culture and business networking. Much has been said about government policy and her role in assisting the Malay business community but little is mentioned on her role in nurturing entrepreneurial culture and generating business networking. This thesis aimed to address these issues; firstly, to determine whether entrepreneurial culture and networking contribute to the performance of the Malay entrepreneurs and their businesses, and secondly, whether they need the government to assist them in nurturing entrepreneurial culture and generate networking for their business. This is an exploratory research and attempted the case study approach to respond to the research questions. The research focused on the Malay entrepreneurs in the trade and services sector operating within the state of Selangor. The thesis attempts to describe the effect of entrepreneurial culture on performance and networking on performance. The study also attempts to determine whether the Malay entrepreneurs need the government to assist them with both entrepreneurial culture and business networking. On entrepreneurial culture, the key findings infer that the Malay entrepreneur who has a successful business has acquired the entrepreneurial culture. There is a positive impact of entrepreneurial culture on the entrepreneur as a business operator leading to a better business performance. The findings imply that entrepreneurial culture does influence the performance of business turnover. On networking, the finding also infers that the Malay entrepreneur who has a successful business has established business networking. The finding also shows that there is a positive effect of business networking on business performance; implying that better networking results in better performance. On the government’s role in the development of Malay entrepreneurial culture and business networking, the findings indicate the role as insignificant. The study concludes that both entrepreneurial culture and business networking have a positive impact on the performance of the Malay as an entrepreneur leading to a better business performance. Last but not least, the successful Malay entrepreneurs do not need the government to assist them to nurture entrepreneurial culture or generate business networking.
