Probing into the issues of outsourcing among SMEs in Malaysia

The paper attempts to understand the prevalence of outsourcing among entrepreneurs in small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) in Malaysia. Outsourcing is a convoluted process and can bring new development opportunity for the SMEs to quest for their competitiveness. A sample of ten SME entrepreneurs from Malaysia participated in this study. A series of interviews were conducted among these entrepreneurs to probe into their behaviours and outlook on outsourcing. The results showed that SME entrepreneurs highlighted the importance and impact of outsourcing in managing and running their business enterprise. Some entrepreneurs perceived outsourcing as a key trend shaping the future of their activities in terms of reducing costs, increase efficiency, flexibility and performance. In sum, this paper generates agenda for researchers to reach more conclusive evidence about the practice of outsourcing among SMEs.