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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.

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.