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The purpose of this paper is to examine the underlying process of a relative leader–member dyadic communication behavior linking association between ethical leadership and organizational identification in Malaysia’s diverse workplace.

Based on relational dyadic communication, social comparison and social identity theories, the authors develop a mediation model. The model illustrates the link between the relative leader–member dyadic communication behavior processes, ethical leadership and organizational identification. The model was tested on a sample of 273 group members from 58 groups working in large government link corporations in Malaysia.

Results of hierarchical regression analysis provide support for the model. The authors found that ethical leadership was positively related to relative leader–member dyadic communication behavior based on the norms and values of budi context. Budi is a social norm in the Malaysian context that helps employees to know how they should interact with others. Budi is manifested through the use of language and should be used or present in the interactions or conversations with others.

The relative shared norms and values of budi mediate the relationship between ethical leadership and organizational identification after controlling for the perception of individual leader–member dyadic communication behavior on norms and values of budi.

The purpose of this paper is to explore whether surface-level actual similarity interacts with leader-member dyadic communication agreement in predicting group member performance ratings at earlier time periods in a work group’s development. Additionally, this research examines whether deep-level perceived similarity interacts with leader-member dyadic communication agreement in predicting group member performance ratings at later time periods in a work group’s development. The relationship between shared cultural context and perceived and actual similarity is also investigated.

This research analyzes longitudinal data from the study questionnaires at five occasions in a Malaysian organization.

Results based on a sample of 28 group projects and 141 matching dyad who completed the study questionnaires at 5 occasions reveal that there is no interaction between workgroup relational ethnicity and workgroup relational gender with leader-member dyadic agreement at early time periods in a workgroup’s development. Therefore, H1 is not supported. H2 posited that deep-level perceived similarity will interact with leader-member dyadic communication agreement in predicting group member performance ratings at later time periods in a workgroup’s development. H2 is supported. Results reveal that the interaction between leader-member dyadic communication agreement and perceived similarity explains 36 percent of the variance of perceived group members’ performance ratings. This is after accounting for the control variable and the independent variables. From a cultural standpoint, the findings in this study underscore that conversations based on the Malaysian cultural norm of “budi” reflect not only a cultural basis of communication, but also that this shared cultural context leads to perceived similarity between ethnic Malay, Chinese, and Indians, and also both genders in the Malaysian workplace.

Leader-member dyadic communication agreement reflects the social appropriateness and relationship quality between individuals, as well as the context of the leader-member workgroup interactions. The findings of this study underscore the premise that conversations reflect not only a cultural basis of communication, but also that shared cultural context leads to perceived similarity. This study specifically examines the role of ethnicity in Malaysia organizational workgroup (e.g. ethnic Malay, Chinese Malay, and Indian Malay) as well as gender.

This study systematically examines the influence of actual and perceived similarity in leader-member dyadic communication from a longitudinal and multilevel standpoint.

Although the importance of group leader and group member dyadic relationships has been increasingly emphasized, only few studies have focused on the dyadic level analysis of leader–member relationships. By integrating theories of relational leadership and relational dyadic communication among workgroups, the purpose of this paper is to propose a theoretical model that links relative leader–member exchange quality (RLMX) and relative leader–member conversation quality (RLMCQ) to group performance, as mediated by group cooperation.

The model was tested in a field study with multiple sources, including 232 leader–member dyads and 407 workgroup peer dyads among 70 intact workgroups. Data were collected on-site during paid working hours from four training sessions. Group members were surveyed four times (Time 1, Time 2 and Time 3) and group leaders were surveyed once (Time 4) to minimize common method bias. The hierarchical linear modeling and polynomial regression approach were used to determine the mediating effects of the group cooperation.

In this study, the authors found support for indirect effects of relative RLMX and RLMCQ on group performance through the mediating role of group cooperation.

The cross-sectional design of the current study is to be interpreted with caution, concerning any conclusions about the causal ordering of the variables in the model.

In organizational situations with group leaders and group members already in high-quality relationships and conversation, management should endeavor to facilitate opportunities for cooperation among group members and a means to also enhance team–member exchange.

By introducing LMCQ and group member cooperative behavior in workgroups, this study actively respond to the scholars’ warnings that ignoring the workgroup context may hamper the progress in understanding the factors that will inhibit or enhance workgroup behavior.

The purpose of this paper is to assess statistically the shared cultural values scale that incorporates Malaysia’s multi-ethnic cultural values.

This study involved three phase statistical testing. In the first phase, the authors evaluated the 152 items for the affiliation, community embeddedness, respecting elders, harmony, faith, brotherhood, morality, future orientation, conformity and survival cultural dimensions with a sample of 270 employees from three organizations. In the second phase, 355 employees from two organizations completed a survey test-retest reliability and a factor analysis consisting of community embeddedness, focus on respect, conformity and future orientation as a four-factors solution with 22 items. Confirmatory factor analysis based on data from 310 employees in two organizations verified that the four dimensions correlated with affective commitment.

The results suggest that shared cultural characteristics is a multidimensional construct and at the individual level makes a unique contribution in explaining employees’ affective commitment. Managers from multinational corporations operating in this emerging market will benefit from this new scale because they can use it to identify specific individual cultural characteristics within their organization and develop a strategy to target employees’ affective commitment.

The new shared cultural characteristics scale for Malaysia’s multi-ethnic society demonstrates adequate reliability, validity and across-organization generalizability for this specific cross-cultural communication setting.

This study provides a systematic testing of ethical leadership and organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) by examining the underlying mechanisms of leader motivation language on ethics through which ethical leadership influences followers’ OCB at the team level.

A multilevel model was validated via with structural equation modeling (SEM) from hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) based on data collected in a Malaysian organization.

The perceived leader–member ethical communication at the team-level makes a unique contribution beyond the ethical leadership in explaining OCBs.

Perceived leader–member ethical communication mediates the relationship between ethical leadership and OCB.

This study aims to examine the effects of the advertising appeals (AP) on consumers’ behavioural intention, specifically to use global brands. In addition, the study investigates how attitude operates as a process variable that mediates the relationship between AP and behavioural intention (BI). This paper also explores the congruity of individuals’ norms in advertising appeal–intention relationship. Centred on the theory of planned behaviour, this study proposes a model that encompasses norm congruence, in which the degree of individuals’ uncertainty avoidance (UA) moderates the relationship between advertising appeal (AP) and behavioural intention (BI), and attitude towards advertising appeal (AT) serve as key causal mechanism that mediates advertising appeal–behaviour relationship.

The proposed model was tested using a 2 × 2 experimental design with a sample size of 372.

Results showed that the relationship between AP and BI based on global brands is significantly mediated by attitude towards AP and moderated by uncertainty avoidance. These findings have yielded partial validation of the proposed model and have provided empirical support for the roles of uncertainty avoidance and attitude towards AP.

The authors propose that marketers should reduce the level of consumers’ uncertainty. Uncertainty avoidance effects can be achieved through the dissemination of norm-congruent advertisement appeals and by placing more weight on social compatibility attributes which may gratify consumers’ interest, sebsequently enhance the intention of Muslim consumers to use global brands.

A moderator is a variable that affects the strength of the relation between the predictor and criterion variable. This paper also explores the congruity of individuals’ norms in advertising appeal–intention relationship. Previous studies did not capture any effects of culturally congruent advertising appeals by considering the level of uncertainty avoidance influence on individuals’ intention to use global brands in a Muslim country context. In response to the recent calls for research to re-examine the antecedents of the theory of planned behaviour, this study re-evaluates the roles of attitude towards AP and the interaction of cultural norms.

This chapter examines how leader–member dyadic communication in the Malaysian workplace operates at the leader–member dyadic level in the context of cultural norms. We propose a model of leader–member dyadic communication based on the cultural norms of budi bicara, which in turn influences the perception of workplace mentoring in Malaysia. The model is tested by using hierarchical multiple regression with data obtained from a sample of 510 employees in three Malaysian organizations. Results show that leader–member dyadic communication in the workplace is linked with the career mentoring perceptions. These findings partially validate our proposed model and provide empirical support for the central roles of communication exchange processes in mentoring.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between knowledge management and growth performance of construction companies.

In total, 600 questionnaires were sent to selected individuals in grade G7 construction companies. A total of 110 completed questionnaires were returned and deemed usable. The collected data were processed and analysed by partial least-squares (PLS) path modelling with SmartPLS 2.0 software. This technique was selected because it is appropriate for exploratory studies, such as the current one, where hypothesised relationships between variables have not been tested.

The findings show a positive relationship between knowledge management and growth performance in construction companies. The results of this study are valuable in establishing a valid and reliable survey instrument, especially for construction companies.

The results of this study can be can be utilised as a basis for strategic choices by top management, to enable a company to grow. Right decisions are crucial to enable construction companies to remain competitive, and develop in a challenging business environment.

The paper furthers understanding of how knowledge management influence growth performance in construction industry. This aspect has been little studied both in theoretical and empirical studies.

Research on organizational communication has shown significant associations with many important outcomes. Although these researches are appealing, there have been criticisms and suggestions for improvement of the organizational communication scales, developed in Western organization settings, to make them applicable to collectivist culture‐based organizations. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to access the organizational communication construct through the development and validation of an organizational communication measure for Malaysian organizations.

Item analysis for Malaysian organizational communication scale involves survey of 250 university employees, followed by construct and criterion‐related validation using 346 employees, representing three organizations in Malaysia, resulting in a Malaysian organizational communication scale.

Through the validation of a Malaysian organizational communication measure, support was found for the proposition that Malaysian organizations are composed of information flow, communication climate, message characteristics, and communication structure, as well as new dimensions, namely, the group bond and respect.

One of the weaknesses of the study was the size of sample used for the focus group. Another weakness was the organizations involved in the validation segment of the study, which were service‐related organizations. Finally, current investigations limit themselves to job satisfaction. These results have to be handled carefully.

The paper shows that group bond and mutual respect are salient work relationships in Malaysian organizations.

The emergence of group bond and respect dimensions in the Malaysian organizational communication construct is consistent with the examination of organizational behavior.

A need for effective leadership and adequate managing the personnel is vital for every construction organization. Meanwhile, the dynamic and complex environments of the industry may be caused that not much research has been conducted on leadership practices in the industry. The purpose of this paper is to study the leadership style of the construction leaders in Iran and explore the correlation of transformational leadership practices with teamwork improvement in the construction companies.

The research analysis was completed on a sample population of 107 managers within nominated construction firms in Iran. The analysis methods in this research were mainly descriptive and regression-based analyses and the type of investigation was a co-relational study.

The research found the level of the leaders’ orientation for people and task in their leadership style, their transformational leadership qualities, and the relationship of transformational leadership with teamwork improvement in the respondents’ companies.

The study is the first to investigate the leadership style of the construction leaders in Iran, and weather transformational leadership practices effects on teamwork improvement in the industry.