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This article revisits cross‐cultural management in Malaysia by challenging some fundamental assumptions. Most models of culture, such as Hofstede’s, assume that a country is reasonably homogeneous to make an analysis meaningful. We argue, conceptually and by providing empirical data that Malaysia is not a homogeneous country, and therefore Hofstede’s model is not suitable in Malaysia. Although this article deals with Malaysia specifically, there are a number of countries where Hofstede’s assumption might not work. In this context, we use Malaysia as an exemplar. We conclude that a better alternative is the model of Schwartz.

This article takes stock of the state of cross‐cultural management in Malaysia. It first focuses on a number of problems that cross‐cultural management faces generally, namely the lack of integrated knowledge and the possibility of subjectivity influencing the research design. Then the article looks at the state of cross‐cultural management research in Malaysia. It concludes that cross‐cultural management in Malaysia is, as yet, a series of “snapshots” with little follow‐up. Lastly, a number of themes for future research in Malaysia are proposed.

The aim of this paper is to investigate the perceptions of Malaysian employees of ABC MSC (a Japanese company in Malaysia) in order to recommend changes in management practices.

Fieldwork was conducted using participant observation and interviews. Participant observation was conducted to investigate the flow of information, the implementation of decisions made by the top Japanese managers, problem resolution, and the reaction of the local staff to management practices. The interviews highlighted communication problems which have existed between the Japanese CEO and the local telecommunications companies since the company started operations in 1997.

Even thought the company is backed by a financially strong parent company in Japan and has a lot of growth potential, this potential remains partially untapped due to management strategies of the company headquarters.

Japan remains an important Foreign Direct Investment country in Malaysia. The perceptions of employees of Japanese companies in Malaysia are worth investigating since changes of management strategies in the home country affect the direction and operations of the overseas subsidiaries. Further research should be carried out in other Japanese companies in Malaysia.

Suggestions to improve the management strategies are discussed.

It is believed that no other Japanese company in Malaysia has been investigated in this way before. This paper's findings should be useful to many expatriate managers in Malaysia.

Discusses various cultures around the world and examines some models of national culture particularly those of Hofstede and Schwartz. It reports some findings on cultural differences between the main ethnic groups in Malaysia (Malays, Chinese and Indian) using an instrument based in part on Schwartz's seven dimensions. Further, differences between managers and their subordinates are examined. Two conclusions are that there are few significant differences in cultural values between the three ethnic groups but there are highly significant differences between subordinates and their superiors, in the sample of 324 Malaysians investigated.

The purpose of this empirical study is to investigate the three elements of intellectual capital, i.e. human capital, structural capital, and customer capital, and their inter‐relationships within two industry sectors in Malaysia. The study was conducted using a psychometrically validated questionnaire which was originally administered in Canada. The main conclusions from this particular study are that: human capital is important regardless of industry type; human capital has a greater influence on how a business should be structured in non‐service industries compared to service industries; customer capital has a significant influence over structural capital irrespective of industry; and finally, the development of structural capital has a positive relationship with business performance regardless of industry. The final specified models in this study show a robust explanation of business performance variance within the Malaysian context which bodes well for future research in alternative contexts.

Business process re‐engineering (BPR) is a management technique that radically rethinks and redesigns business processes to achieve dramatic improvements in business performance such as customer service and quality. The acceptance of BPR has been reinforced by the implementation of re‐engineering initiatives in many Malaysian banking institutions and the Central Bank of Malaysia, Bank Negara, is in favour of these initiatives. Nevertheless the effectiveness of BPR in this context has hitherto not been investigated. The aim of this paper is to investigate the effectiveness of the critical success factors (CSFs) of BPR implementation process in the Malaysian banks and finance companies. Several hypotheses were tested concerning the relationships between the CSFs of the BPR implementation process and the performance of the enterprise, i.e. customer service performance and business performance. With the assistance of Institut Bank‐bank Malaysia (IBBM), 103 questionnaires were completed and analysed.

OF old the public library was wont to take its reputation from the character of the newsroom. That room, as everyone knows, attracts every element in the community and it may be it attracts especially the poorer elements;—even at times undesirable ones. These people in some towns, but perhaps not so often now‐a‐days, have been unwashen and often not very attractive in appearance. It was natural, things being as they are, that the room should give a certain tone to the institution, and indeed on occasion cause it to be avoided by those who thought themselves to be superior. The whole level of living has altered, and we think has been raised, since the War. There is poverty and depression in parts of the country, it is true; but there are relief measures now which did not exist before the War. Only those who remember the grinding poverty of the unemployed in the days, especially the winter days, before the War can realise what poverty really means at its worst. This democratic levelling up applies, of course, to the public library as much as to any institution. At present it may be said that the part of the library which is most apparent to the public and by which it is usually judged, is the lending or home‐reading department. It therefore needs no apology if from time to time we give special attention to this department. Even in the great cities, which have always concentrated their chief attention upon their reference library, to‐day there is an attempt to supply a lending library service of adequate character. We recall, for example, that the Leeds Public Library of old was first and foremost a reference library, with a lending library attached; to‐day the lending library is one of the busiest in the kingdom. A similar judgment can be passed upon Sheffield, where quite deliberately the city librarian would restrict the reference library to works that are of real reference character, and would develop more fully the lending library. In Manchester, too, the new “Reference Library”—properly the new Central Library—has a lending library which issues about 1,500 volumes daily. There must be all over the country many libraries issuing up to a thousand volumes each a day from their central lending departments. This being the case the department comes in for very careful scrutiny.

Section 3(1) of the Banking Act 1987 stipulates that:

Using a meta-regression analysis, we quantitatively review the empirical literature on the relation between effective tax rate (ETR) and firm size. Accounting literature offers two competing theories on this relation: The political cost theory, suggesting a positive size-ETR relation, and the political power theory, suggesting a negative size-ETR relation. Using a unique data set of 56 studies that do not show a clear tendency towards either of the two theories, we contribute to the discussion on the size-ETR relation in three ways: First, applying meta-regression analysis on a US meta-data set, we provide evidence supporting the political cost theory. Second, our analysis reveals factors that are possible sources of variation and bias in previous empirical studies; these findings can improve future empirical and analytical models. Third, we extend our analysis to a cross-country meta-data set; this extension enables us to investigate explanations for the two competing theories in more detail. We find that Hofstede’s cultural dimensions theory, a transparency index and a corruption index explain variation in the size-ETR relation. Independent of the two theories, we also find that tax planning aspects potentially affect the size-ETR relation. To our knowledge, these explanations have not yet been investigated in our research context.

The purpose of this study is to determine the extent that extrinsic product attributes (brand name/packaging) influence consumers' perceptions and resulting evaluation of intrinsic product attributes, quality, and purchase intention.

A 2 (brand) x 2 (treatment group) experimental “taste‐test” design was created using two brands of cookies (national versus store brand) and two treatment conditions (whether the cookie was in its respective package or placed in the competitor's package). T‐tests were used to compare mean scores of six product attributes (taste, texture, appearance, purchase intent, value) measured on five‐point bi‐polar adjective Likert scales.

Subjects' evaluations of the national brand were significantly higher compared to the store brand across five of the six cues with the exception of value (as measured by willingness to pay MSRP) when the national brand was in its respective packaging. Subjects also rated the national higher on four of the six cues when it was in the store brand bag. The reverse was not found when the store brand cookie was in the national brand bag.

The results suggest that store brand managers must increase the quality of their product if they expect to capture market share from the national brands. Further research is recommended using other brands and product categories.

Store brands may be able to narrow the market share gap with the national brands only if the quality of the store brands increase. Consumers are more objective in evaluating intrinsic cues than previously thought.