Entrepreneurial Drivers and Performance in Indonesia’s Creative Sector

The creative industry stands out as a key sector with strong potential to foster sustainable national economic development by generating employment, boosting exports, and strengthening cultural identity. Nevertheless, it encounters considerable obstacles, especially in relation to entrepreneurial capabilities, which are often hindered by limited education, insufficient experience, and restricted access to resources and business networks. The frequent incidence of the "valley of death" during the early phases of business formation underscores the critical need for robust and adaptable entrepreneurial competency development. This research explores the key factors that shape entrepreneurial competence and examines their influence on building sustainable business performance in West Java's creative industries. It focuses on assessing the roles of knowledge, skills, entrepreneurial orientation, social capital, and entrepreneurial personality in shaping entrepreneurial competence, and how these competencies, in turn, impact various dimensions of business performance. A total of 259 creative entrepreneurs, each with a minimum of 3.5 years of business experience, participated in the study. The data were analyzed using Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM). Results indicate that knowledge, skills, entrepreneurial orientation, and social capital significantly contribute to the development of entrepreneurial competence, whereas entrepreneurial personality does not present a meaningful effect. Moreover, enhanced entrepreneurial competence is shown to positively affect business outcomes such as sales growth, profit margins, customer satisfaction, and loyalty. The model exhibits strong predictive accuracy, explaining 70.4% of the variance in entrepreneurial competence and 36.2% in business performance. These findings highlight the critical role of fostering entrepreneurial competence through targeted improvements in knowledge, skills, entrepreneurial orientation and social capital to advance the creative economy sector.