INTERNAL FACTORS WITHIN ENTREPRENEURS THAT INFLUENCE THE ACCEPTANCE AND USE OF SOCIAL COMMERCE AMONG SMEs IN MALAYSIA

Current technological advances, particularly in information and communications technology (ICT) and social media have sparked a phenomenon in the business world. The existence of social commerce (s-commerce), which is a combination of e-commerce and social media, has opened up greater opportunities for SMEs in Malaysia. The use of s-commerce as a medium for marketing and buying and selling is capable of helping SMEs to increase the sales and profitability of their businesses. However, according to studies conducted by SME Corp Malaysia, the usage of e-commerce and social media is still low. Attitude and self-efficacy are variables that are often used in studies related to entrepreneurs and their intention to accept a new business innovation or technology. Therefore, this study was undertaken to identify the internal factors within entrepreneurs, namely attitude and self-efficacy, which influence the acceptance and use of s-commerce among SMEs in Malaysia.


Introduction
The role played by ICT cannot be denied by any business organization today because it is so critical in managing a business in this era of globalization.The role of ICT can have a significant impact on employees and even the processes involved in business organizations.The globalization era and borderless ICT affects any type of business, be it a big or small business organization, especially those involved in SMEs.According to Wen dan King (2008), ICT is an important technology that has been used by organizations, including business organizations, to shape the competition between organizations over the last decade.

Social Commerce
The current issues that are under

Attitude
Attitude is a feeling about behaviour and it is generally measured in the mind as being either good or bad (Hunsinger, 2012; Y. J. Kim, Chun & Song, 2009).
The effect of attitude on the intention to behave in a certain way is widely discussed in behavioural models.Ajzen

Self-Efficacy
Self-efficacy is the individual's belief in his own abilities in relation to a particular matter (Bandura, 1978).The For most models that involve behavioural intention in relation to entrepreneurship, attitude and selfefficacy are the two main components that are frequently used because they can affect the related behavioural intention.(Fini, Grimaldi, Marzocchi & Sobrero, 2009 ;Mohd et al., 2014 ;Huang & Liaw, 2005).
Therefore, this study will look at the effects of the self-efficacy of SME entrepreneurs on the acceptance and use Internet have to do with social commerce (s-commerce), which has led to an increase in the use of social networking services (SNS) on the part of consumers(Jang, Ko & Kim, 2013).S-commerce is a new trend in ecommerce which integrates social media onto the e-commerce platform(N.Hajli &   Sims, 2015).The term 's-commerce' was first introduced around the year 2005 to refer to a new method of conducting business through e-commerce (Shadkam & O'Hara, 2013).S-commerce also refers to sales activities on social networking sites (Gatautis & Medziausiene, 2014).In the s-commerce environment, users are not only viewed as purchasers but also act as triggers for two-way communication between vendors and buyers, where it is said that the customers actively shape the buying and selling process until ecommerce without s-commerce is deemed as a conventional transaction (M.N. Hajli, 2012).This is because s-commerce has emerged as the latest innovation in ecommerce, where social networks are combined with online shopping in ecommerce to support social integration online (Shen & Eder, 2011).The sophistication of technology has opened up opportunities for consumers to not only purchase products and services online but to also leave their comments or rate the services and the products that have been purchased (M.N.Hajli, 2014).This situation has indirectly led to vendors being more careful and cautious in conducting transactions, while maintaining the quality of their products at the same time.Although there are businesses that are engaging in s-commerce, many business managers are still unable to formulate and develop effective strategies to adapt their businesses to s-commerce due to a lack of understanding on the usage of s-commerce(Teh & Ahmed,   2011).In reality, not much research has been carried out on how social media and the social media environment can be optimized for the marketing and sales of products and services(Yadav, De Valck, Hennig-Thurau, Hoffman & Spann, 2013).This is a very important issue because little is known about how 'social commerce' can take your business far into refer to studies that point towards e-commerce and social media, where the combination of both will give rise to s-commerce.

Figure
Figure 1: Research Framework

( 2005 )
defined attitude as an individual assessment of the impact of the implementation of a conduct or behaviour that will give rise to two forms of belief, , in general, no matter how sophisticated a technology might be, its adoption and effective implementation still depend on the user having a positive attitude.Nevertheless, a study carried out by Fulantelli and Allegra (2003) found that SME entrepreneurs have a very weak positive attitude when it comes to the adoption of ICT in their business because they still have misgivings with regard to security issues in relation to ICT. found that consumer attitude has no influence on the behavioural intention to use s-commerce.Most studies related to attitude and s-commerce are carried out from the perspective of the user, such as observing how prior experience in using technology can influence the relationship between attitude and intention to purchase by way of s-commerce (S.B.Kim et al., 2013).In addition, the experience of buying from other consumers is also being made the basis for carrying out transactions using s-commerce (Hashim, Affendi, Yusof & Rashid, 2012).The attitude of consumers towards s-commerce is also often viewed in terms of the consumer's confidence in the vendor via the two-way interaction that takes place with the vendor (Unsal, Komaromi & Erickson, 2011).Hence, this study will look at the influence of the attitude of SME entrepreneurs towards the acceptance and use of s-commerce from the perspective of SMEs based on the following hypothesis basic principles of the theory of selfefficacy are the achievement and motivation of individuals, which are determined by self-confidence, where the individuals are more inclined to involve themselves in activities where they have a high level of self-efficacy compared to other activities.If viewed from the perspective of consumers, consumers who have a high level of self-efficacy towards social media will be more trusting of information that is shared by others (Hocevar et al., 2014).This shows that self-efficacy is a strong indicator of the perception of Internet users towards the reliability of online information and how they use online information for the confirmation of credibility.In addition, self-efficacy is also used to assess the intention of entrepreneurs to use something new in their business.In fact, Mohd, Kirana, Kamaruddin, Zainuddin and Ghazali (2014) suggested that individuals with courage (including honesty), discipline and a high level of self-efficacy have the potential to become innovative risk takers.
Attitude and self-efficacy are two elements that need to be addressed in studies involving the behaviour of SME entrepreneurs in efforts to adopt a new technology such as s-commerce.However, in future studies, researchers can examine the willingness of SMEs to adopt s-commerce in business by looking at factors such as usefulness, usability and social influences.Besides that, the obstacles and challenges in the use of scommerce can also be taken into account in efforts to promote the use of scommerce among SMEs in Malaysia.

Table 1 :
Users of Social Networks in Malaysia