INTERNATIONALIZATION OF HALAL FOOD FROM THE MALAYSIAN SMALL-MEDIUM ENTERPRISE PERSPECTIVES

Internationalization of small-medium enterprises is seen to be essential as it contribute most to the country’s income. Despite all the government effort in aiding SMEs to go global, there are still SMEs that hesitate to follow the trend. Therefore, this paper seeks to investigate hindering factor of Malaysian SMEs from going global. The study adopted in-depth interview of 14 SMEs entrepreneurs from various industry in Southern region of Malaysia. Results indicate that five common barriers arise are Halal certification, entrepreneurs’ attitude, cross-cultural marketing, lack of resources government initiative and inefficient supply chain. The results of the study can be used as a guidelines for a better SMEs internationalization policy.