DO MALAYSIAN FIRMS POSSESS GLOBAL MANAGEMENT STANDARDS?

Abstract

In this era of rapid globalization, economic development in any one country is invariably linked with strategic management practices across the globe. This is because businesses in any one country increasingly have to compete globally and standards for success or failure also become global. Despite their pervasive use, mission statements in particular are among the most poorly understood strategic management tools available to organizations. Mission statements are an essential part of globally succeeding management practice and content analysis is in fact a fairly popular research stream, with consistent attention devoted to identifying potential items for mission statements inclusion. This paper studies the mission statements of plantation based companies listed in the Malaysia Bourse. Ironically the results show 79.5% of them have no mission statements and those with mission statements basically pursue four major issues; "to be a responsible corporate citizen" (18.8%), "to exceed customer expectation" (12.5%), "to enhance shareholders value" (12.5%), and "to provide opportunity for career advancement" (9.4%). In conclusion, these findings indicate the lack of strategic management practices among these companies despite being known as one of the most important sectors to the country's economic sustainability.