Author(s): Nor Balkish Zakaria, Siti Mariam Mohammad Iliyas, Siti Zarikh Sofiah Abu Bakar, Saunah Zainon, Maheran Zakaria
Despite the many critics about the universities-industries gap, the efforts seen to address the shortcomings are still insufficient. While SMEs stimulate the local economy, their sustainability are always at stake. On the other hand, universities are seen as knowledge and training-based contributors to ensure these SMEs survival. Thus, this study aims to analyse the association between SMEs’ revenue and university contribution in terms of marketing, consultancy, human resource, and trainings. Three branch campuses in the southern region of Malaysia were chosen to represent Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM) for this study. A questionnaire survey was conducted based on stratified sampling among local SMEs within 10km radius from the university campuses. This study includes both descriptive and inferential statistics. In terms of inferential statistics, regression analysis was performed to further examine the effect of SMEs revenue with other exploratory UiTM-SMEs contribution variables (marketing, consultancy, HR, trainings) while controlling the effect of SMEs’ ownership type, staff number and business age. The findings of these final 209 SMEs responses revealed that there is a significant association between the university’s contribution in terms of marketing and training to SMEs’ revenue. The results show that SMEs revenue is significant to the marketing and trainings that is provided by UiTM. These results shed highlight to the policymakers of the institutions to get a more in-depth understanding and to promote further university-industry collaboration and initiatives for business sustainability.