Relationship Between Motivation And Business Sustainability: A Study On Homestay Entrepreneurs In Malaysia

Homestay program has a very good impact on the country's economy and tourism sector especially for the benefit of locals. The study intends to examine the relationship between sustainability and motivation of homestay entrepreneurs in the East Coast of Peninsular Malaysia. The study applied both quantitative and qualitative methods involving face-to-face interview and questionnaire instrument for data collection. 258 entrepreneur respondents took part by mean of simple random sampling method. The study reported a significant relationship between sustainability and motivation. The findings also identified that the homestay entrepreneurs in Malaysia‟s East Coast states were highly motivated by internal factors to involve in the homestay business, even though they were facing many challenges and problems in managing their homestay businesses. This results will be benefitted to the homestay entrepreneurs to improve and enhancing their homestay business in future. Nonetheless, collaboration and networking with government and associations are still needed to further improve the development of homestay program.


Introduction
Currently, Malaysia was ranked among top 10 in the world receiving foreign tourist arrivals every year to enjoy the beauty of the heritage and culture. The tourism industry is one of the largest contributors to the national economy. Besides, the tourism sector has grown as the third largest sector which contributes to the country's revenue (Business News | The Star Online, 2017). This high revenue is closely related to the various tourism products owned by Malaysia. Among the products being developed are homestay programs. This product was developed and is growing fast in all states in Malaysia. The homestay is accommodation facilities that provides space or room for rent to the tourists. The setting up the homestay is to provide alternatives to the tourists to accommodate the lack of hotel rooms in some places. Some small and secluded places do not have hotels, resorts, chalets and so on. Besides that, the main reason of setting up the homestay is a tourism product which was introduced to give a chance to the tourist to stay with selected local family and experience their daily lifestyle and learn their cultures. In addition, homestay program has giving a large contribution towards the growth of ecotourism and heritage tourism. This is because ecotourism and heritage tourism was introduced to promote nature, culture and adventure aspects of Malaysia. The setting up of homestay programs can provide effective mediums for Malaysians to share their lifestyle and culture to outsiders or tourists. Currently, there are 199 homestays throughout Malaysia with total of 3,878 houses offering 5,445 rooms until April 2017. Looking at the concept of homestay tourism can give a good impact and benefit especially to the development of the country's tourism sector.
The tourism sector is a dynamic industry that can offer opportunities for rural communities involved with homestay program. Malaysian government have viewed this sector as an opportunity for rural communities to participate in tourism industry and encourages the households to grab this opportunity as chance to increase their living standard of life. Homestay tourism is called as Community-Based Tourism (CBT). Through this homestay program, tourists can interact directly with their host families and experience the traditional activities in order to create compatibility between hosts and different backgrounds of life and culture. This homestay program also allowed guests to enjoy the beauty and uniqueness of nature as well as to carry out various traditional cultural activities of the host community. This form of tourism was able to develop rural communities with various new opportunities to be created. The Ministry of Tourism has officially made the homestay program is one of Malaysia"s tourism products and is actively promoted throughout the world. Homestay products were not classified as mere accommodation facilities, but rather focus on lifestyles and experiences, including cultural and economic activities (Ministry of Tourism, 2012). Homestay products not only affect the national economy but also affect the locals, which are an agreement on the success of the homestay products. This is due to the high spirit of community and the cooperation of members of the Village Development and Security Committee (JKKK) in promoting the homestay program in Malaysia. Through the administration of the homestay program can also establish a close relationship and an agreement between the communities.
In addition, the homestay program can also create employment opportunities to local communities in the field of services and management such as drivers, chef, cleaning services and another job opportunity for communities to engage in business enterprises. Moreover, this program can develop infrastructure and facilities to the communities. Hence, the communities received financial assistance and infrastructural facilities by the government such as roads, telecommunications, mosques, community halls and so forth (Johan and Mohamad, 2009). In line with the government's policy implementation strategy towards the development of the tourism sector in Malaysia, the homestay program contributes to the country, promoting foreign exchange, promoting economic and social development, promoting rural development, generating employment opportunities, accelerating urban / rural integration, cultural exchange, promoting the involvement of all ethnic communities in the sector, forming Malaysia's first-class image internationally and building national unity (Che and Hamzah, 2012). The future of the tourism industry is dependent on local communities" ability to develop and sustain tourism developments.
In recent years, sustainability has been a major focus for most organizations due to the occurrence of climate change, regulatory pressures and social needs to be more responsible for the environment and social. Homestay programs are also facing the same issue of sustainability. Sustainability gets serious attention by corporate executives and is a key focus on strategic goals by most organizations (Chouinard et al., 2011). Another issue lingering around the sustainability of homestay program is motivation. If motivation is high among the participants, chances to see the sector grow is high. Generally, motivation factor can positively impact towards homestay sustainability developed by the local community, especially in terms of economic, social and environmental.

Objective
The main purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between sustainability and motivation on homestay entrepreneurs in the East Coast of Peninsular Malaysia. The characteristic of motivation can affect the participation and perception of homestay entrepreneurs about the impact of homestay development on their local communities. The results would be used in enhancing the tourism industry especially in the homestay tourism business.

Sustainability
A document entitled Our Common Future, also known as the "Brundtland" Report published by World Commission on Environment and Development in WCED (1987), defines sustainable development as a development that meets current needs without affecting future generations' capabilities to meet their needs alone (WCED, 1987). The Triple Bottom Line (TBL) principle, also referred to as the "Three Sustainable Pillars", was introduced to illustrate the three pillars of sustainability -economic, environmental and social (Elkington, 1997). Organizations should not only show success in terms of economic sustainability but also environmental sustainability and social sustainability (Svensson et al., 2010).
Economic sustainability is crucial for the success of corporate finance where an organization must be able to produce goods and services on an ongoing basis and avoid expenses beyond revenue to continue operating. Environmental sustainability focuses on the impact of the business towards the environment. The homestay development is believed to be able to preserve and conserve natural resources and cultural heritage if the sustainable development method is implemented and implemented throughout its development stage (Mohamad et al., 2011). Social sustainability includes the context of humanity in the business, which emphasizes fairness in distribution and opportunity and in relation to health and education issues, inequality in income and poverty (Aggerholm et al., 2011;Harris, 2003). Social and environmental sustainability has long been established among business lexicon (Sengers et al., 2016;Shrivastava and Guimaraes, 2017). Therefore, responses to social and environmental demand demands on business operations are a major challenge for a business (Gunasekaran et al., 2014).
The sustainability of decision-making in entrepreneurship is a process whereby the founders of a business make choices for current and future business activities that are in line with social, environmental and economic implications for business activities carried out (Munoz, 2017). This decision prioritizes critical activities for the success of a business, which at the same time does not exclude the ecological and social environment in which the business operates (Shepherd and Patzelt, 2011), and / or prioritizes which has the potential to restore or preserve the environment towards the recovery of balance between nature, community and economic activity (Parrish, 2010).
Hence, managers and directors are of the opinion that sustainability is a significant step towards improving the competitiveness of an organization in the future (Oudshoorn, 2005).

Motivation
Motivation is defined as a condition of necessity that drives 'individuals' towards certain types of actions that may bring their satisfaction (Moutinho, 1987). In addition, some earlier authors agree that it has three distinct needs or motives for entrepreneurs who need achievements, competitive requirements and the need for independence. In addition, external factors also play a role in influencing human motivation towards entrepreneurship such as economic status, venture capital availability, competitor action, and government regulation (Scott et al., 2009).
In addition, other factors that can influence human motivation are cognitive factors such as knowledge, skills, and abilities (Scott et al., 2009). With higher motivation can help an entrepreneur acquire knowledge, skills, and abilities in the first place and develop a vision for achieving goals. Scott et al (2003) also found that motivation has a positive impact on entrepreneurship. The findings are supported by Arias and Pena (2010) that an entrepreneur has a higher level of motivation is positively associated with business performance. To succeed in a particular business, entrepreneurs need motivational and environmental factors that provide comfort and support to them.

Sustainability with Motivation
According to Abdul et al. (2011), the homestay entrepreneurial motivation factors can be categorized into pull factors and push factors. Gilad and Levine (1986) in Segal et al. (2005) have explained two theories of entrepreneurial motivation which is the "push" theory and the "pull" theory. They argue that the "push" theory is individuals are pushed into entrepreneurship by negative external forces, such as job dissatisfaction, difficulty finding employment, insufficient salary, or inflexible work schedule. While, for the "pull" theory explained that individuals are attracted into entrepreneurial activities seeking independence, self-fulfillment, wealth, and other desirable outcomes. This finding also supported by Syed (2008) that theory of motivations for becoming entrepreneurs can be many reasons such as a desire for independence, monetary reward, lack of job or career prospects, and a desire for work-family balance.
In addition, individuals motivate to do entrepreneurship activities also influenced by their desire to continue a family inherit since their parents have own business Harpa et al. (2016). According to Franck (2012), she stated that the most reasons that motivated to doing entrepreneurship such as they eager "to earn income" and "interest in doing business". When do entrepreneurship, they believed that they can making money and spending for their money pocket for families. It may also be motivated by a variety of "voluntary" and "opportunity" driven factors (Franck, 2012). From previous study by Syed (2008), they found that micro and small business can be recommended to analyses motivations for entrepreneurs set for their enterprises and the criteria by which they measure their performance. Scott et al. (2009) have found that motivation has a positive effect on entrepreneurship. This finding supported by Arias and Pena (2010) that an entrepreneur has a higher level of motivation is positively associated with venture performance. Kundu and Rani (2007) also had proven that on their finding that achievement motivation, personal control, self-esteem have been viewed as main factors that give most effective predictor of future performance.

Population and Sample
The fieldwork was conducted in the East Coast of Peninsular Malaysia which were from Pahang, Terengganu and Kelantan. Population and sample for this study were homestay entrepreneurs registered with the Ministry of Tourism and Culture Malaysia Homestay (2017). Selection of homestay entrepreneurs was used because it is a highpotential rural tourism program as an international and domestic alternative tourism product. The study was applied both quantitative and qualitative methods which did directly interview and survey questionnaires to collect data. Sample size has been determined according to Table Krejcie and Morgan (1970). This study used a probability sampling technique consisting of simple random sampling (Chua, 2009). A total of 260 homestay entrepreneurs from three East Coast states of Peninsular Malaysia, Pahang, Terengganu and Kelantan, but only 258 questionnaires were returned.

Instrument Study and Data Analysis
Questionnaire was used as instrument in this study to obtain information and data collection. The questionnaire was designed in Malay language as mother tongue that utilizes in data collection through face-to-face with homestay entrepreneurs. Researchers have conducted studies and interviews of homestay entrepreneurs comprising on these three East Coast of Peninsular Malaysia. Respondents were asked to answer the questions based on Likert scale 1 to 5 (1 = very disagree, 2 = disagree, 3 = disagree, 4 = agree, 5 = strongly agree). The reason behind using 5-point Likert scale by "Strongly Disagree"/"Strongly Agree" is to ensure consistency and provide flexible for respondents to answering the questionnaire. The data would be analyses using SPSS version 20. Descriptive and correlation analysis also would be used to answer the research objective.

Respondents Distribution of Homestay Companies by State
Based on Table 1, a total of 15 homestays in Malaysia's East Coast were registered with the Ministry of Tourism and Culture Malaysia selected to be the sample of the study. For the highest distribution of respondents, the highest number of respondents were from Homestay Kuala Medang from Pahang state with 43 persons or 16.6%. Next, Felda Selasih Homestay from Terengganu state recorded the highest number of respondents of 32 or 12.4%. In addition, Homestay Kg. Kubang Telaga from the state of Kelantan also recorded the highest number of respondents as much as 32 people or 12.4%.  Table 2 shows the findings that 60.2% was female respondents and the rest was male respondents (40.7%). For respondents age distribution, only 2.8% of the population aged 26 to 35 years old and 36 to 45 years old had the same percentage, while the age distribution of 55 years old was higher than 62.0% or 134 respondents. This shows that employment among the elderly still used as a major driver of economic activity in every state. For the distribution of marital status, a significant number of respondents were married to 79.5%. Based on the table below, 205 respondents were married, while 25 persons were widowed / widowed and the rest were single.

Respondents Demographic Profile
For the distribution of education, a large proportion of respondents had a high school level of 51.2% or 132. Only 5.4% have diploma level education. If viewed carefully, as much as 34.9% or 90 respondents were full-time working as homestay entrepreneurs. Therefore, most of the respondents working in the homestay business were the permanent owners of the company. For monthly income, a large number of respondents (63.2%) had a low income level of RM 1,000 and below. Through this study, it has also identified the main reason why homestay entrepreneurs want to involve in the homestay business. Table 3 showed the results of main reason why homestay entrepreneurs choose to work in the homestay business. It was found that 133 respondents chose to become homestay entrepreneurs highly motivated by to improve their financial status and increase their income (51.6%). This is one way respondents can increase economic growth while protecting local culture against the ever-increasing flow of globalization. Followed by 62 respondents of interest to become homestay entrepreneurs (24.0%). In addition, various government incentives and incentives were provided for homestay entrepreneurs. The rest of 41 respondents wanted to work in the homestay business because the government was concerned with providing various assistance and incentives for development of the homestay business.

Reliability Analysis
According to the reliability test, all the scale has a Cronbach"s alpha coefficient that above 0.6. All the variables constructed were acceptable with the alpha coefficient is higher than 0.60 (α > .60). High Cronbach"s Alpha values suggest that constructs were internally consistent. This indicates that the items in each scale were measuring the same underlying construct and have high internal consistency. Since all the Cronbach"s alphas were higher than 0.60, it could be concluded that the measures used in the present study were reliable Hair et al. (2010).

Descriptive Analysis
In general, motivation level was at high level (M = 4.33, SD = 0.672) as shown in the Table 5. While, for sustainability as shown in the Table 6, the findings showed that the sustainability phase of the homestay entrepreneurs was at high level (M = 4.40, SD = 0.686). Furthermore, constructs of sustainability variables such as economic sustainability, social sustainability and environmental sustainability were also at high levels, as shown in the table.

Correlation Analysis
Correlation is a bivariate analysis that measures the strengths of association between two variables. In statistics, the value of the correlation coefficient varies between +1 and -1. When the value of the correlation coefficient lies around ± 1, then it is said to be a perfect degree of association between the two variables. As the correlation coefficient value goes towards 0, the relationship between the two variables will be weaker. Usually, in this research used Pearson Correlation in order to investigate the relationship between sustainability and motivation. Based on Table 7, there was a positive relationship between sustainability and motivation (r=0.711) with significant at 0.000. The passion factor may be the contributing factors to high motivation to succeed. High motivation and passion among homestay entrepreneurs is very important will help increase sales and the number of tourists in the homestay business. An interesting finding show the level of motivation is satisfactory.  (2-tailed) .000 N 258 258 **. Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).

Conclusion
Generally, homestay tourism has a great potential to be developed based on its reputation that can positively impact local communities, particularly economically, which contribute to the generation of more jobs for the population and better income generation through the homestays offered to travelers. From the results, there were identified that motivation and sustainability have a significant relationship for the homestay entrepreneurship. The homestay business can certainly help improve the economy and living standards of rural communities, but this goal will be achieved if the homestay entrepreneurs highly motivated to grab the knowledge and skills in business and entrepreneurship. Besides, the reason that made homestay entrepreneurs want to join the homestay business highly motivated by to improve their financial status and increase their income. Thus, entrepreneurial competence is essential for every resident entrepreneur to achieve their goals.
Through the planned homestay development, this tourism can indirectly help protect the environment, maintain and conserve cultural heritage aspects and improve the quality of life of the local community. Hence, the development of the homestay company is very good as it contributes to a positive impact on the well-being of the local community. This is because the homestay business in conformity with the concept brought about is a form of tourism product that a group of community members should offer. Hence, the supply of this homestay product will certainly bring economic, social and environmental benefits to the affected communities.

Recommendation for Sustainability of Homestay
It is difficult to maintain the effectiveness of the homestay tourism as there are many obstacles that can mitigate this effort. In this context, barriers or challenges faced by the homestay entrepreneurs in managing the homestay including financial problem, management, maintenance and communication are seen as factors that can cause tourist arrivals to decline and for this reason many homestays in Malaysia are difficult to survive for a long period of time.
So, this study has provided new insights into understanding of the impacts of motivation towards the homestay business sustainability. This research has important implications to educators and policy makers in the planning and developing a variety of activities that raise motivation which will positively enhancing sustainability of homestay business among homestay entrepreneurs. The involvement of government, the Homestay Association of Malaysia, agencies and educational institutions is essential to help giving the better direction for development of homestay business, especially in rural communities. Focusing on rural communities, entrepreneurial competencies must be applied within themselves for their future. This research stressed the importance of motivation factor that influencing toward the sustainability of homestay business among homestay entrepreneurs in East Coast of Peninsular Malaysia. Thus, policy makers can influence the communities to expand their experience into entrepreneurship activities and encourage more of the youth generation to choose to be entrepreneur. These may be helpful to encourage and empower future entrepreneurs for self-employment. The improvement of the homestay management also need to be given higher attention with provide skills and knowledge for homestay entrepreneurs. With the implementation of exciting programs and activities can be done in the homestay business that can help attract attention and increase the number of tourists to come to their hometown.
Additionally, homestay entrepreneurs need to have strong relationships with outside parties to take the opportunity to promote the homestay business in globally. For example, the homestay company can work with companies such as Traveloka and Booking.com that provide accommodation bookings and flight tickets through online for the entry of tourists from various countries. Furthermore, homestay entrepreneurs can also participate in various association that related with homestay and tourism that provide the programs and forums that can give new initiatives and ideas to emphasize their business toward more advanced. A good idea can be adopted and practiced by the homestay entrepreneurs to promote the beauties of their village. The development of this homestay business would be continued and enhanced by the provision of proposals that can assist future entrepreneurs.