NATIONAL POSTGRADUATE SEMINAR 2012 “Challenges and Prospects in Science and Technology for Environmental Sustainability” 1 Abstract International market entry strategy in making the firm’s entering new foreign market possible to expand their businesses in terms of services, products, technology, human and other resources has been widely studied. However, reviews of literature suggest that a comprehensive model or framework with existing theory to clearly guide the firms to adopt effective entry market strategies for construction industry is still lacking. Thus, this paper seeks to identify the suitable entry strategies related to entry timing to guide the construction firms identify suitable entry timing to access targeted market in order to avoid poor strategic decisions which can lead to failure in their business ventures abroad. The key determinants those are of critical importance in influencing the entry timing choices by Malaysian construction firms are ranked accordingly. The questionnaire surveys were sent to 109 Malaysian construction firms listed under CIDB Malaysia with twenty-one percent (21%) response rate. The data were analyzed using factor analysis to establish the findings. The analysis was used to group the thirty (30) factors into four (4) specific-factors namely project, country, firm and industry. Findings based on the order of the loaded factors indicate that the firm-specific factors (with Cronbach alpha value of 0.855) are the main determinant that were significantly considered by the Malaysian construction firms in their entry timing decisions to enter the international market. The major determinants under firm-specific factors are the firm size with strong resources and competencies, size of project and trade relationship between two countries. The second determinants under project-specific factors are strong financing capacity, market barriers and existence of strict quality requirements. This study illustrates the determination of entry timing and consideration of determinants influencing the success of entering the international construction business to further enhance the firms’ competitive advantage across national borders. It is hoped that findings of this research would offer valuable information to any construction firms in Malaysia to develop suitable entry timing strategies in their international market expansion. Keywords: International market, Malaysian contractors, Entry timing decisions, Determinants 1 Introduction Expanding into foreign country is one of the most critical business strategies made by a firm relative to international market. Nowadays, firms are internationalizing in more different ways than ever before by using combinations of international market entry strategies in accessing foreign markets (Axinn and Matthyssens, 2001). Chen and Messner (2011) emphasize that the firms cannot afford poor decision in assigning their limited resources to diminishing markets while avoiding the attractive ones, or using wrong market entry related strategic decisions. Gaba et al. (2002) outline three interlinking questions that the firms face with regard to international expansion where the firms have to decide what market to enter (entry location), how to enter (mode of entry), and when to enter (timing of entry). Ellis (2000) supports that the choice of which country to enter, when to enter and how to enter commits a firm to DETERMINANTS FOR ENTRY TIMING DECISION BY MALAYSIAN CONSTRUCTION FIRMS INTO INTERNATIONAL MARKET Che Maznah Mat Isa 1 , Hamidah Mohd Saman 2 , Siti Rashidah Mohd Nasir 3 , Nor Hazwani Abd Rahman 4 1 PhD Student/Senior Lecturer, 2 Assoc. Prof., 3 Senior Lecturer, 4 Master Student Faculty of Civil Engineering, UiTM, Shah Alam, Selangor, Malaysia chema982@salam.uitm.edu.my