Public–Private Partnership Strategy in Increasing Competitiveness Advantage of Malaysia’s Halal Cosmetic and Personal Care Industry

Abstract

The Halal Industry Master Plan reflects the commitment and effort of the Malaysian government to encourage private business enterprises in the halal cosmetic and personal care industry to be more competitive. The private business enterprises need a more competitive advantage to compete with international non-certificate halal cosmetic products and more capacity to export halal cosmetic and personal care products. This empirical study was conducted to test the relationship between government support programmes and the competitive advantage of private business enterprises and examine the effect of the mediating variable of business opportunity on the relationship between government and public business enterprises. Data were collected from 84 participants from the top management in private business enterprises in cosmetic and personal care products. Data were analysed by using PLS-SEM. A significant positive relationship between contractual programmes and competitive advantage was found. However, this relationship could have been more significant when business opportunity was included as a mediating variable. Meanwhile, the study found a negative relationship between relational programmes and competitive advantage. Surprisingly, the relationship between relational programmes and competitive advantage became positive when business opportunity was added to the model. This study focused only on Malaysia’s halal cosmetic and personal care industry. Future studies may be conducted in other halal sectors and other regions.