Author(s): Mohd Sobri Minai, Saqlain Raza, Noor Azmi bin Hashim, Ali Yusob Md Zain, Tamoor Ali Tariq
Entrepreneurial education and entrepreneurial competencies are both regarded as key factors for enhancing the firm performance. The roles of entrepreneurial education and entrepreneurial competencies have greater importance in the context of the business environment, in particular for the small businesses. This paper is written based on the review the literature and propose a conceptual framework of examining the firm performance from the perspective of entrepreneurial education as the independent a sole variable and entrepreneurial competencies as the mediating variable. Based on the research foundation, two research propositions have been developed that form the theoretical relationship between variables understudy. The proposed framework offers very useful insights as it proposes that entrepreneurial education as the antecedent of entrepreneurial competencies, which hypothesized (by many researchers) to lead to firm performance. This paper is conceptualized based on the underpinning theory of resource based view, which is constantly ‘borrowed’ to be applied in the small business context. The paper is also viewed as a source of rich insights as it provides some useful implications for entrepreneurs in ensuring higher extent of entrepreneurial education and entrepreneurial competencies that lead toward better performance of small businesses.