The orientation of handicraft entrepreneurs in Sabah: their personality characteristics and motivations(Orientasi usahawan kraftangan di Sabah: ciri personaliti dan motivasi) / Noor Fzlinda Fabeil, Khairul Hanim Pazim, Kamarul Mizal Marzuki, Juliana Langgat

In general, enterprises with an entrepreneurial orientation develop and grow through innovation and modernization of production. Nevertheless, this logic may not apply to rural small-scale enterprise particularly related to ‘lifestyle’ or ‘artbased’ businesses like handicraft production, where modest production is so favored among the entrepreneurs as it allows preservation of special quality and value of a product. This paper argued the traditional way of defining high-performing enterprise, i.e. formal business operation will earn entrepreneurs better income over modest production. The results of cluster analysis of this study confirmed that there are three types of handicraft entrepreneurs in relation to their level of business operation (full-time/parttime), premises (home-based/workshopbased) and performance (sales and profit), with different influences of personality characteristics and motivations. Drawing upon the findings of structured interviews among 200 handicraft producers in Kota Belud, Sabah, this paper contributes evidence about the actual profiles of handicraft entrepreneurs, and factors motivate them to orient to a greater level of operation and performance. In addition, this paper hopes to provide insight to the Malaysian government to improve support measures that are accurately tailored, by providing the right incentives to the right entrepreneurs