Entrepreneurship is important for the economic growth and wealth of the nation. Entrepreneurs are responsible for not only generating income to themselves but also to others in terms of job creation. However, the issue of the entrepreneurs' well-being is hardly being touched upon particularly in the context of stress, work motivation, and performance in enterprises of small and medium sizes in Malaysia. Work motivation as the mediator is the main contributions from the study. Therefore, the study aims to examine these relationships within this context. Stress, motivation, and performance were measured using A Shortened Stress Screening Tool (ASSET), Multidimensional Work Motivation Scale (MWMS), and Individual Work Performance (IWPQ), respectively. Questionnaires were distributed among the Majlis Amanah Rakyat (MARA) entrepreneurs located in Klang Valley and approximately 150 respondents responded. Data were analysed using the hierarchical multiple regression method. The results showed that certain stressors such as work relationship, work overload, job security, and resources and communication significantly affect motivation. Meanwhile, work motivation significantly predicts performance. Finally, stressors such as work relationships, work-life balance, job security, and pay and benefits significantly influence performance. Overall, work motivation partially mediated stress and performance relationship. Entrepreneurs should be aware of these significant stressors and conduct interventions so as to reduce their stresses and thus, improve their work motivation and performance.

It is widely acknowledged in the existing studies that innovation has the critical role in firms’ performances. Moreover, it has been acknowledged that innovative activities are the main sources of growth, survivability, and success for SMEs firms. In the setting of entrepreneurship, earlier studies have claimed that innovation is the integrated element of entrepreneurship. However, the existing studies have also revealed inconsistent findings regarding the impacts of innovation on firm’s performances under various contexts. Thus, this study claims that there should be a moderator to facilitate the relationship between innovations and firm’s performances. Therefore, this study has introduced the external integration as a moderator to improve the relationship between types of innovations and firm’s performances. The main objective of the study is to identify the relationship between various types of innovations including process innovation, product innovation, marketing innovation, and organizational innovations and business success operationalized with four dimensions including perceived financial performance, perceived non-financial performance, perceived business growth, and perceived performance relative to competitors) under the moderating role of external integration. Three theories namely Strategic Contingency Theory (SCT), Resource Dependence Theory (RDT), and Resource Based View (RBV) have been integrated to develop the proposed theoretical framework. The recent literature has been taken to gather the information about the variables that helped current study to develop a theoretical frame work and then eight propositions have been developed based on proposed theoretical framework. The external integration as a moderator between innovations and business success is the main theoretical contribution of this study. Furthermore, limitations have been stated at the end and recommendations have been made for future research.

In this paper, we have constructed a sequence of soft points in one soft set with respect to a fixed soft point of another soft set. The convergence and boundedness of these sequences in soft ∆-metric spaces are defined and their properties are established. Further, the complete soft ∆-metric spaces are introduced by defining soft ∆-Cauchy sequences.

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There is an abundance of studies on work engagement found in the literature. However, there is a lack of grounded research framework to be based on relating stress to work engagement of Malaysian private academics. Therefore, this study is aimed at 1). reviewing the literature on stress and work engagement; 2). applying the ASSET model of stress to work engagement; 3). hypothesizing the relationships among these variables, and 4). deriving a conceptual framework. Based on the literature review on psychological literature and the application of the ASSET model of stress, the paper proposes a model of the relationship between stress and work engagement through commitment and health. Suggestions for practice and future research are also presented. Keywords— ASSET, Malaysian private academics, stress, work engagement.