Entrepreneurship characteristics of innovators

An assessment of entrepreneurship characteristics of innovators in Malaysia

Final Report

June 2011

Authors :

Prof. Stephen Ong, MINDS

Ms. Sahar Hassani, Multimedia University

STUDY TOWARDS THE NATIONAL INNOVATION STRATEGY : GARAGE INVENTORS

Copyright S.Ong and S.Hassani 2011 1 of 24

Table of Contents

Executive Summary 3Chapter 1 : Introduction 4Chapter 2 : Garage Inventors in Malaysia 8Chapter 3 : Evaluation of the Entrepreneurship Characteristics of Garage Inventors

17

Conclusion 23Appendix – ITEX Survey Results and Questionnaire 24



EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

This study was undertaken to assess the entrepreneurship characteristics of innovators and the

influence of the environment on the commercialisation efforts of innovators in Malaysia. The

study involved the research of innovators representing one hundred and sixty-nine (169)

organizations, and the active participation, interviews and responses from a representative

sample of one hundred and two (102) garage inventors. These innovators and their

organizations are deemed representative of the innovation activities in the national innovation

eco-system.

The findings of this study give a firm base of evidence and understanding to support our

recommendations of forward-looking strategy measures to improve the rate of successful

commercialisation of innovations and business survivability of innovative start-ups in

Malaysia through a more focused framework of assistance for garage inventors.

The strategy measures recommended address three broad areas, principally –

1. The establishment of a national academy to strengthen human capital in the areas of

entrepreneurship and innovation management, and commercial competence among

garage inventors;

2. The establishment of small scale manufacturing capabilities with industry players for

rapid prototyping and accelerated access to the market place for innovations ;

3. The establishment of a central coordination agency for collective global marketing

and promotion activities for innovations of garage inventors.



CHAPTER 1 : INTRODUCTION

Overview

The Malaysian Invention & Design Society (MINDS) founded in 1986 is the largest Non-

Governmental Organisation (NGO) representing individual inventors and organisations in

promoting a culture of invention, creativity, industrial design, innovation and R&D in

Malaysia. For the past 22 years, MINDS has held an annual international Invention

Innovation & Technology Exhibition (ITEX) to showcase the best innovations by inventors

and innovators in Malaysia. Approximately over 10,000 innovations have been exhibited.

The successful innovators at ITEX are recognised by the World Intellectual Property

Organisation (WIPO) in Geneva, Switzerland. However, few innovations have achieved

global commercial success.

Research Study Approach

This study on the characteristics of innovators and their external environment in Malaysia - “What are the entrepreneurial factors that influence the commercialisation efforts of

innovators in Malaysia?” – was commissioned by Unit Inovasi Khas (UNIK) to identify

improvements to the innovation eco-system and the entrepreneurship characteristics of

innovators that affect the rate of successful commercialisation of innovations in Malaysia.

Over the course of this eight week study, the research team set to establish answers to the

following questions :

1. What are the challenges that innovators face today?

2. What are the entrepreneurship characteristics of innovators?



3. What are the strategy measures that can be recommended to improve the rate of

successful commercialisation of innovations and business survivability of innovative

start-ups?

Methodology of Study

The study was conducted through several self-administered questionnaires; and selected one-

to-one structured interviews. A survey of Malaysian innovators participating in the annual

International, Innovation & Technology Exhibition (ITEX 2011) and selected Malaysian

innovators who were award winners from previous exhibitions ITEX 2007 to ITEX 2010 was

carried out through a self-administered questionnaire and selected one-to-one interviews. The

list of organisations from the public, university and private sectors represented by the garage

inventors that participated in the study are listed in Exhibit 1.

The survey involved 102 respondents from a pre-qualified population of 392 ITEX

exhibitors, with an overall error-free contact rate of 26%.

The study provides a basis of understanding of the characteristics of innovators, innovation

capacity and growth in Malaysia.

Exhibit 1 : Participating innovators and their respective organizations at ITEX 2007 to

2011

ORGANISATION AbbreviationUNIVERSITI MALAYA UMUNIVERSITI SAINS MSIA USMUNIVERSITI KEBANGSAAN MSIA UKMUNIVERSITI PUTRA MSIA UPMUNIVERSITI TEKNOLOGI MSIA UTMRESEARCH UNIVERSITIES SUBTOTAL 5

UNIVERSITI TEKNOLOGI MARA UiTMUNIVERSITI MSIA PERLIS UNIMAPINT ISLAMIC UNIVERSITY MSIA IIUMUNIVERSITI TUN HUSSEIN ONN MSIA UTHMUNIVERSITI MSIA PAHANG UMPUNIVERSITI MALAYSIA SABAH UMSUNIVERSITI MSIA TERENGGANU UMT



UNIVERSITI UTARA MSIA UUMUNIVERSITI MSIA KELANTAN UMKUNIVERSITI PERTAHANAN NASIONAL MSIA UPNUNIVERSITI PENDIDIKAN SULTAN IDRIS UPSIUNIVERSITI MALAYSIA SARAWAK UNIMASSTATE UNIVERSITIES SUBTOTAL 12

UNIVERSITI TEKNOLOGI PETRONAS UTPUNIVERSITI TEKNIKAL MSIA MELAKA UTEMUNIVERSITY TENAGA NASIONAL UNITENMULTIMEDIA UNIVERSITY MMUUNIVERSITI KUALA LUMPUR UKLGIATMARA GMINSTITUT KEMAHIRAN MARA IKMKOLEJ UNIVERSITI ISLAM ANTARABANGSA SELANGOR KUIASUNIVERSITY OF NOTTINGHAM MSIA UNMUNIVERSITI TUNKU ABDUL RAHMAN UTARUCSI UCSIPRIVATE UNIVERSITIES SUBTOTAL 11

MARDI MARDISIRIM BHD SIRIMFRIM FRIMLEMBAGA GETAH MSIA LGMMPOB MPOBMIMOS MIMOSJABATAN TENAGA MANUSIA (MHRA) JTMMALAYSIAN COCOA BOARD MCBMSIAN INST PHARMA & NUTRACEUTICALS (MOH) MIPNMACRES MACRESRESEARCH INST / MINISTRIES SUBTOTAL 10

UNIVERSITIES-RI SUBTOTAL

TELEKOM RND TMRNDSME SMECORPORATE SUBTOTAL 2

INDIVIDUALS INDSCHOOLS SRMK



Summary of Key Findings and Recommendations

INNOVATION ECO-SYSTEM

CHALLENGES RECOMMENDED STRATEGY MEASURES

Garage inventors L a c k b a s i c c o m m e r c i a l

understanding to grow sustainable

business enterprises

Establish a National Innovation &

Entrepreneurship Academy with

industry players in Key Sectors

Lack of facilities for industrial

design and supply chain

management

E s t a b l i s h F a s t I n n o v a t i o n

Manufacturing Centres with


Limited marketing resources to

support garage inventors and start-

ups

Coordinate global marketing and

p ro m o t i o n s o f M a l a y s i a n

Innovations in key export markets.



CHAPTER 2 : GARAGE INVENTORS

Overview

The inventors movement has been formally organized as a Non-Governmental Organisation

(NGO) registered as the Malaysian Invention and Design Society (“MINDS”) for twenty-five

(25) years in Malaysia. The NGO was mooted by the Prime Minister of Malaysia at that time,

who also became its founding patron. Over the years, individual inventors from all strata of

society and professions including universities, research institutes, industrial designers, public-

listed corporations, SMEs, hobbyists and schools have supported and participated in activities

to promote creativity and showcase their “Made-in-Malaysia” inventions and innovations.

The achievement of the NGO has included attaining the endorsement of the Geneva-based

World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) and elevated many Malaysian inventions

and innovations for recognition at the international level. As such, the annual exhibition

ITEX (International Invention, Innovation & Technology Exhibition), hosted by MINDS has

attracted a significant number of national collaborators and participants from foreign

countries including Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, China, Hong Kong, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Sri

Lanka, Brunei, Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, Japan, Canada, USA, Germany,

Belgium, Poland, Hungary and Russia.

MINDS, as a non-profit organization, has focused on creating awareness of the importance of

inventions, innovations and design as a creative force in shaping the development of human

activities for the betterment of social and economic outcomes. MINDS has achieved this

through creative education programmes through schools at the local level throughout each

State in Malaysia; was the first to develop awareness among social segments including

Women and Youth; and the promotion of the awareness of intellectual property rights among

inventors. (This has resulted in the creation of another NGO, Malaysian Intellectual Property

Association).



Being a self-funded organization, MINDS has only been able to provide basic education

programmes; a promotional platform through its annual exhibition; and basic intellectual

property related counseling. MINDS, as a recognized partner of CIP, has referred successful

inventors and innovators seeking seed funding for commercialization to the relevant

government agency. However, in reality, funding from government agencies have not been

forthcoming.

Our recent study has highlighted some important issues relating to the gap between

successful innovations and the route to commercialization for garage inventors. Essentially,

garage inventors fall into two (2) broad categories, namely university or PRI based

innovators, and privately funded innovators. While both groups have different expectations of

outcomes, they share similar characteristics that hinder their execution of successful

commercialization.

Challenges

i) Lack basic commercial understanding to grow sustainable business enterprises

ii) Lack of facilities for industrial design and supply chain management

iii) Limited marketing resources to support garage inventors and start-ups

Challenge 1: Lack basic commercial understanding to grow sustainable business

enterprises

Generally, the vast majority of garage inventors comprising of university and PRI based

inventors, have received generous funding from government grants, and have maintained a

high growth in terms of innovation outcomes and sustained innovation capacity. The



noticeable exception being the fall in innovation capacity and decline in innovation outcomes

at private sector universities (including GLC owned universities) who have focused their

mission on profit growth exclusively. However, it is revealing that this category of inventors

continue to have a dependent mindset in terms of their expectation of continued government

funding for their commercialization efforts. This is in spite of their limited understanding of

the business environment and the required return on investment in the commercial world to

sustain a business enterprise.

Over the past few years, another disconcerting trend has emerged where universities have

formed their own investment holding subsidiary to assume full ownership and control of the

commercialization of their researchers’ innovations after they failed either to license or to

collaborate with industry partners. In fact, our study found that many of these innovations at

the research universities have also failed to qualify as incubatees at their own university

incubators. This approach of utilizing university funds has been taken in spite of clear

evidence showing that very few academics have entrepreneurial leadership and the university

organizational culture does not support entrepreneurial decision-making.

Recommended Strategy Measure: Establish a National Innovation & Entrepreneurship

Academy with industry players in Key Sectors

The agency should coordinate a strategic partnering programme with industry to set up a

National Innovation & Entrepreneurship Academy to focus on training and developing

entrepreneurship, industry orientation, marketing, financial and business management skills

of garage inventors. As the programmes will be industry led (and not academic based), the

Academy will help garage inventors to strengthen networking with industry and increase

exposure to global supply chain requirements.



The Academy’s programme should focus on the twelve (12) National Key Economic Areas,

namely - Oil, Gas and Energy; Palm Oil; Financial Services; Tourism; Business Services;

Electronics and Electrical; Wholesale and Retail; Education; Healthcare; Communications

Content and Infrastructure; Agriculture; and Greater Kuala Lumpur/Klang Valley (i.e.

Infrastructure & Construction; and Transportation).

The agency will identify suitable multinational companies, public listed companies and

members of the Federation of Malaysian Manufacturers (FMM) operating in Malaysia for

this partnering programme. This programme will provide sound orientation for garage

inventors and their expectations, and prepare them to be more commercially relevant with

their plans to commercialise their innovations. The programme can also adopt software based

assessment tools to identify the gaps in their entrepreneurial characteristics and analyse

specific training needs. As a result, mentors or angel investors can be identified to suit

specific commercialization projects that pass the programme.

The Academy’s programme can be a pre-requisite for any potential incubatee applying for

entry at government run and university incubators. As such, the programme can be hosted at

the various university locations or incubator clusters based on demand.

The agency will establish the Academy with a founding grant, with subsequent operating

expenses support from universities sending their participants and private sector sponsorship

of their respective component industry awareness modules.

The agency will offer specific programme incentives to attract the participation from the

private sector and experienced management staff that include allowing corporations to

qualify expenses related to their sponsorship or seconded personnel for double tax relief

under innovation activities; and lower personal income tax rates (similar to the 15% income

tax rate for knowledge workers in Iskandar Malaysia) for experienced managers (department



managers and above) from the corporations or recently retired (on an unconditional, non-

discriminatory basis).

This strategy measure will provide entrepreneurship orientation for garage inventors;

reinforce relevance on their commercialization efforts in the global marketplace through

engagement with industry players; encourage knowledge transfer and best practices from

industry; and strengthen entrepreneurial skills through a national training platform.

Challenge 2: Lack of facilities for industrial design and supply chain management

The second category of garage inventors that come from privately funded individuals and

SMEs have better understanding of commercial returns required for their innovative

products, but most are not collaborating with universities or PRI which is a pre-requisite for

government grants, as well as are disconnected from other available government incentives

and support system for SMEs and international trade. Further, this category of garage

inventors have tended to focus on meeting consumer needs with better mouse-traps (designs)

for consumer goods and innovative applications to improve consumer lifestyles. This trend is

similar to the focus of the majority of private sector garage inventors from Taiwan and South

Korea.

While the government has set up incubators to assist garage inventors in food processing,

furniture and craft industries, sectors related to fast moving consumer goods and consumer

appliances have not been addressed. With the increasing emphasis on consumer spending as

a driver for the region’s economic growth, it is not surprising that garage inventors have

innovated to meet the rising demand for consumer lifestyle goods associated with growing

affluence in Asia’s increasingly urbanized populations.



The potential of import substitution of international brands purchased regularly by

households have not gone unnoticed by garage inventors in Taiwan, South Korea and China;

especially when the bulk of these items are produced locally or regionally. The success of

Taiwan in producing superior substitute products by innovating on the leading competitor

brands in their export markets; and building an efficient and flexible supply chain has meant

shorter turnaround times in bringing innovations to the marketplace - termed as “fast

innovation”, a concept learnt from the intensely competitive high technology companies in

the USA. The building up of Taiwan’s SME capacity has meant the strengthening of

industrial design and packaging; effective global systems integration functions; improved

management capability of members along the supply chain; and the availability of resources

for small production runs. Taiwan’s garage inventors have leveraged on this SME capacity to

bring their innovative products to market quickly.

Recommended Strategy Measure: Establish Fast Innovation Manufacturing Centres with


The agency should coordinate a strategic SME industry partnering programme between

multinationals and local SMEs to set up the Fast Innovation Manufacturing Centres funded

by each party on a 50:50 basis. The Centres will house industrial designers and advanced

flexible manufacturing facilities. The effort will strengthen SME innovative process

capabilities and transfer best practice from multinationals to meet global supply chain

requirements.

This Fast Innovation Centres programme should focus on manufacturing consumer goods

from five (5) National Key Economic Areas, namely - Palm Oil; Electronics and Electrical;

Wholesale and Retail; Healthcare; and Transportation.



The agency will identify suitable multinational companies operating in Malaysia for this

partnering programme with members of FMM. This programme will support SME capacity

to strengthen standards of industrial design and packaging; to develop global systems

integration functions; to improve management of the supply chain; and to adapt innovative

processes to enable small and flexible production runs.

The agency will offer specific programme incentives to attract the participation from

multinationals and SMEs that include allowing corporations to qualify investment and

expenses related to their participation for double tax relief under innovation activities.

Specific programme incentives can include extension of pioneer status of multinational for

another ten (10) years on corporate income tax exemption; five (5) year tax holidays or lower

personal income tax rates (similar to the 15% income tax rate for knowledge workers in

Iskandar Malaysia) for full-time knowledge workers from the multinational and the SME

employed in the Centre (on an unconditional, non-discriminatory basis); access to

employment of foreign knowledge workers; duty free imports of capital equipment and

consumables for the Centre; exemptions from government service tax and withholding tax on

technical and consulting services provided to the Centre; and access to the agency’s human

capital development innovation grants to subsidise fifty percent (50%) of salaries of technical

specialists.

This strategy measure will establish SME’s central role in supporting the commercialization

of innovative products for the global marketplace; encourage knowledge transfer and best

practices from multinationals; and strengthen local SME’s capacity to function in global

supply chains.

Challenge 3: Limited marketing resources to support garage inventors and start-ups



For more than two decades, Government efforts at establishing a network of representative

offices in important foreign export markets (MATRADE, MPOB) and highly expensive

delegations to international trade fairs (eg. BIO) have yielded little market intelligence for the

under-represented SME sector with innovative products seeking large export customers. This

has been in stark contrast to Taiwan’s trade agency which pro-actively engages with large

buyers in the supply chain, on behalf of their SMEs, to offer more innovative product

solutions at better price performance than existing competitors in export markets.

As a result, garage inventors, early stage start-ups and SMEs are not able to leverage on

significant resources annually spent by government on promotional activities overseas in an

uncoordinated and less than effective way.

Recommended Strategy Measure: Coordinate global marketing and promotions of

Malaysian Innovations in key export markets

The agency should be the central coordinator for the global marketing and promotional

activities for innovations in key sectors. One of the important activities will include financing

the setting up of a single Malaysian Innovation Pavilion at each key industry annual

tradeshow to showcase relevant innovations, innovative products, technologies or hi-tech

start-ups. The Pavilion space will be made freely available to AIM approved innovations

from garage inventors and hi-tech start-ups, while SMEs and public listed companies will

contribute nominally to the costs of showcasing their innovations. A single Pavilion concept

will avoid duplication of effort, manpower and costs by other government agencies, and

reduce the need for large government led delegations.

Participants in the Pavilion will be responsible to make available factsheets on their

innovations as well as bear any representation costs, including own travel and



accommodation. (This arrangement is similar to trade agency practices of many European

Union countries)

The agency’s representatives will record the enquiries of trade visitors in a database; perform

business matching and manage the follow up process by the relevant garage inventor or

Malaysian company. The agency will gauge the level of interest for each innovation exhibited

and may commission further market research to assess the commercial viability of the

Malaysian innovation in the foreign market on a fast-track basis. For individuals and hi-tech

start-ups, the agency will fully fund the market research study, while for SMEs, the market

research study will be on a one to one (1:1) matching grant basis.

The agency will offer specific programme incentives to allow corporations to qualify trade

promotions and market research expenses related to their innovations for double tax relief

under innovation activities; and individual expenses qualifying as 100% tax rebates for

personal income tax.

This strategy measure will align marketing resources with promotion of Malaysian

innovations in key export markets; increase early access to global markets by innovative

start-ups; accelerate the rate of market adoption at the international level of home-grown

disruptive technologies; and improve the global competitiveness of Malaysian innovations.



CHAPTER 3 : Evaluation of the Entrepreneurship Characteristics of Garage Inventors

Overview

In our study, we have examined the characteristics of innovators and the successful rate of

commercialisation by innovators at their organisations. A robust evaluation criteria is used to

evaluate the broad spectrum of organisations involved in innovation ranging from

universities, government research institutes; private sector corporations and private

individuals. (Note : schools were excluded in this study)

The garage inventors come from different types of organisations as show in Exhibit 2. We

have differentiated the type of organisations including the sub-categories of research, state

and private universities to demonstrate different innovation capacities related to their funding

programmes. We have also analysed a sub-category of university or research organisation

backed by a Government-Linked Corporation (GLC) to understand the impact on innovation

capacity.

Exhibit 2 : Types of organizations at ITEX 2007 to 2011

Type of Organisation Represented NumberResearch Universities 5State Universities 12Private Universities & Colleges 11Government Research Institutes 10Private Corporations 35Individual Inventors 46Schools 50

We have used the number of innovation exhibits at ITEX as a proxy to measure the

innovation capacity and growth of innovation by garage inventors representing their

respective organisations. This measure is more sensitive and indicative of innovation

activities by garage inventors that the use of patent filing data, as the innovator will need

significant more resources to do so. We argue that an exhibit at innovation showcases (such

as ITEX) is usually the first step that an innovator takes to “test the waters” of their



innovation’s relevance to commercialisation and an attempt to compare with the existing

technologies already in use in the real world. The innovator is able to manage the disclosure

conditions at the exhibition and protect his specific intellectual property even as he explores

commercialisation opportunities with potential partners.

The innovation capacity and growth of innovation as measured by exhibits at ITEX over the last five (5) years, 2007 to 2011, is shown in Exhibit 3.

Exhibit 3 : Participating innovators and their respective organizations at ITEX 2007 to

2011

2007 2008 2009 2010 2011UM 27 32 32 35 31USM 31 44 18 25 16UKM 21 55 55 20 0UPM 19 9 10 14 22UTM 0 4 14 4 16RESEARCH UNIVERSITIES SUBTOTAL 98 144 129 98 85

UiTM 58 70 48 42 19UNIMAP 28 39 35 44 47IIUM 0 15 25 35 20UTHM 9 15 18 18 22UMP 9 15 15 8 16UMS 4 23 20 10 0UMT 6 24 8 7 2UUM 0 9 8 14 8UMK 0 0 6 6 10UPN 0 0 0 7 13UPSI 2 0 7 0 8UNIMAS 0 0 0 0 0STATE UNIVERSITIES SUBTOTAL 116 210 190 191 165

UTP 22 18 10 37 9UTEM 15 18 15 16 23UNITEN 8 16 10 25 1MMU 8 2 5 8 8UKL 2 0 5 6 8GM 0 0 5 3 4IKM 0 0 10 0 0



KUIAS 0 0 0 5 2UNM 0 0 0 6 0UTAR 0 0 2 0 2UCSI 2 0 0 0 0PRIVATE UNIVERSITIES SUBTOTAL 57 54 62 106 57

MARDI 11 12 15 13 16SIRIM 6 8 6 7 11FRIM 9 7 10 7 4LGM 0 6 6 0 5MPOB 5 0 1 2 4MIMOS 0 0 7 5 0JTM 0 2 2 2 4MCB 3 5 0 0 0MIPN 0 0 0 0 2MACRES 0 1 0 0 0RI SUBTOTAL 34 41 47 36 46

UNIVERSITIES-RI SUBTOTAL 305 449 428 431 353

TMRND 6 7 13 15 0SME 2 3 14 6 9CORPORATE SUBTOTAL 8 10 27 21 9

INDIVIDUALS 4 6 3 3 30SCHOOLS : SRK, SMK 10 10 10 10 10

Evaluation Model

An evaluation model was developed to assess the entrepreneurial characteristics of the

innovator and the influence of various environmental factors on the commercialisation of the

innovation. The Innovation Performance (dependent variable) of an innovation, was also

measured in terms of commercialisation outputs such as sales, to show the effect of the

Entrepreneurial Characteristics (independent variable) of the innovator.



The model further determined the effect on Innovation Performance (dependent variable) by

Financial Capacity (independent variable) of the innovator, and other mediating influences

by the Environmental factors (mediating variable) such as Intellectual Property regulations,

government innovation and tax policies.

Finally, the model assessed how Innovation Performance (dependent variable) is directly

affected by Target Market Attractiveness (independent variable) of the innovation, which is

determined by Market Orientation, Industry Orientation and Competitors Orientation

(intervening independent variables); and the mediating influence of any of the Environmental

factors (mediating variable).

The study measured 10 principal areas as follows :

1. the respondent’s demographic profile

2. the relationship of the innovation and commercialisation opportunities in the market.

3. the entrepreneurial characteristics of the innovator.

4. the feasibility analysis by the innovator.

5. the industry analysis by the innovator.

6. the market analysis by the innovator.

7. the futurity perception of the innovator.

8. the financial status and capabilities of the innovator.

9. the business growth cycle of the innovation.

10. the essential eco-system requirements needed to support the commercialization process.



Summary of Key Findings

Principal Areas Findings

Demographic profile Garage inventors were overwhelmingly from

the universities sector, with over 90% of

innovations.

As expected, the research universities

demonstrated the largest innovation capacities.

However, the growth of innovation

accelerated the most at State-owned

universities. The relationship of the innovation and

commercialisation opportunities in the market

Few innovations were linked to opportunities

in the market.

The entrepreneurial characteristics of the

innovator

The vast majority of innovators demonstrated

weak entrepreneurial characteristics.

Feasibility analysis by the innovator Few innovators have conducted feasibility

analysis and require assistance to do so.

Industry analysis by the innovator Few innovators have conducted industry


Market analysis by the innovator Few innovators have conducted market


The futurity perception of the innovator The majority of innovators, over 60%,

expected the government to finance their

commercialisation effort.



Financial status and capabilities of the

innovator

Few innovators understand the financial

returns expected from commercialisation, with

only 15% of commercialisation projects

qualifying as meeting the minimum

investment return standard.

Business growth cycle of the innovation The majority of innovations was at the early

proof of concept stage.Eco-system requirements needed to support the commercialization process.

The majority of innovators indicated strong

support for funding and the full range of

incubation services.



CONCLUSION

The findings of this study has enabled the gathering of preliminary evidence for our

understanding and assessment of garage inventors and their innovation activities in

Malaysia.

Among the major issues raised by garage inventors in the innovation eco-system ranged from

insufficient funding disbursement processes; and the lack of institutional support for

commercialization activities. The study further observed the total lack of successful

entrepreneurship characteristics in garage inventors and entrepreneurial leadership (“the

missing link”); and entrepreneurial culture and management capacity in the organizations that

innovators work in.

In order to improve the rate of successful commercialisation of innovations and business

survivability of innovative start-ups in Malaysia, our strategy measures recommendations are

to follow through with a more focused framework in three principal areas, namely –

1. The establishment of a national academy to strengthen human capital in the areas of

entrepreneurship and innovation management, and commercial competence among

garage inventors;

2. The establishment of small scale manufacturing capabilities with industry players for

rapid prototyping and accelerated access to the market place for innovations ;

3. The establishment of a central coordination agency for collective global marketing

and promotion activities for innovations of garage inventors.

The conclusions of this study are supported by present academic theory and research in

entrepreneurship and innovation policies of developing countries, as well as in the developed

economies. Some of the necessary conditions for successful commercialisation of innovation

include sufficient sources of innovation generation from garage inventors; and the growth of

a technology entrepreneurship culture.



Appendix – ITEX Survey Results and Questionnaire



Entrepreneurship characteristics of innovators

Business

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