Date of Award

2001

Document Type

Thesis

Publisher

Edith Cowan University

Degree Name

Bachelor of Business (Honours)

Faculty

Faculty of Business and Public Management

First Supervisor

Allen Clabaugh

Abstract

An exploratory study was made on the managerial selection practices of Malaysian business organizations. The data for the study was provided by 62 business organizations comprising 22 Malaysian-owned small and medium enterprises, 26 large locally-owned corporation and 14 Malaysian-based multinational companies. Comparisons of the selection practices were made between the two categories of Malaysian local companies; between the Malaysian local companies and the multinationals, and between selection practices of the Malaysian organizations combined with the practices in the developed countries as revealed by management literature. Analysis of the results reveal that generally there were little differences between the selection practices of the different categories of business organizations operating in Malaysia. The Malaysian managerial selection practices resemble the practices in the Western-oriented developed countries, such as the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand. ·when compared to Japan, a developed Asian country, however, an important difference may be identified in the selection policy or strategy. While Japanese corporations seldom hire outsiders for higher level positions and prefer to train their own personnel in preparation for managerial position in the future, Malaysian organizations followed the Western practice of leaving the door open by selecting their managerial personnel from internal sources (through promotions from within the organizations) as well as by selecting and appointing from external sources by inviting applications from outside their organizations. Majority of the Malaysian organizations (both the locally owned and the multinationals) preferred the multiple hurdle approach over the multiple regression approach. A most likely reason is to save both costs and time by shortening the selection process by not proceeding to consider any further those candidates who were considered not to have fulfilled a cutoff point in the sequence of the selection stages. Management literature, however, cautions that the multiple approach might create undesired result if the validity for each predictor has not been properly established. Findings from this research indicated that there were little differences in the use of selection methods between Malaysia and the developed countries. The preferred tools used in Malaysia and developed countries are ir1terviews, resume or curricular vitae, application forms, biodata, recommendations and references. As is the case in the developed countries, the interview is the dominant method used. Malaysian organizations, however seem to use recommendations and references and job tryouts more frequently than do organizations in the developed countries. The assessment centres which have gained much higher degree of popularity and acceptance in the developed countries appear to have a relatively low frequency in Malaysia, if results of the study were to indicate an accurate picture in the country. The results show that while assessment centres were frequently of used by some companies in Malaysia, probably among the larger ones, overall its use has not been as widespread and frequent as in the developed countries. Cultural dimensions or characteristics appear to have no impact on the Malaysian selection practices. This could be due to the fact that in business management and business practices, Western influence had more influence than any indigenous cultural features. Malaysian organizations, however, recognise the importance of cultural differences within the country and between nations to business practices and strategy. This recognition is indicated by the fact that Malaysian organizations made it one of the requirements that managers and managerial candidates have skills and abilities to effectively deal with culture related issues und matters that are of importance to organizational performance. When compared to other requirements of the manager's knowledge, skills and abilities, however, Malaysian organizations place a higher degree of importance to human and technical skills. This implies that the skills of the manager to perform tasks that require his expertise as well as his skill in managing the workforce is considered more important than culture-related skills. The effectiveness of the Malaysian selection practices could not be properly assessed based on an exploratory study of this nature. This would require more in depth study and research.

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