Malaysian government is prioritising the efforts in raising the income and uplifting the
wellbeing of the citizen (rakyat) in order to achieves an equitable society by the year 2020.
Currently, Malaysian government is striving to boost the bottom‐class society (i.e. bottom
40 percent household income group (B40)) to the middle‐class society (i.e. middle 40
percent household income group) by fostering community and social‐based enterprises
amongst the community. More job opportunities, appropriate infrastructures and facilities
may be created by setting up social enterprises, and subsequently encourage local
community involvement in various social activities. This will result in a better quality of life
for the B40 communities which will accommodate the efforts to resolve social or
environmental problems and help particular population to earn extra income. However, a
proper governance system and legal structure under which social enterprises can register
and operate are currently not in place. Hence, the overall aim of this study is to obtain a
clear picture of the existing governance structure adopted and practiced by various forms
of social enterprises in Malaysia. In order to achieve this objective, a qualitative method
has been employed and involved qualitative data collection via series of semi‐structured
face‐to‐face interviews with the top level manager from the selected organisations. The
qualitative data in this study is in the form of words (from the transcriptions of the
interviews conducted) whereby ATLAS.ti is a qualitative data analysis programme that has
been used to analyse the interviews. Generally, a social enterprise subsidiary to holding
companies is subjected to a proper governance structure set up by the holding itself. Its
structure is similar to those of corporate entities but with some additions to the existing
governance system in adopting it to local business environment.
