Cultural dimensions of malay cultures: Performance of IT professionals

Abstract

The main objective of this research is to investigate the cultural dimensions of IT Professionals from the Malay ethnic group in Malaysia. The research will also provide empirical support on the findings of literature analysis on the Malay Cultural Dimensions by adapting the questionnaires based on Hofstede’s Values Survey Module 2008. Literature analysis was performed on key research areas such as cultural theory and Malay cultural dimensions. Findings of the literature analysis shall provide partial answer to the identified research question. The Malay cultural dimensions are determined by matching the findings of literature analysis on Hofstede’s cultural dimensions and Malay ‘Budi’ concept. These cultural dimensions are then compared with Hofstede’s cultural index formula for verification. The data collection was carried out over a period of two months in 2015 with 164 IT Professionals from the Malay ethnic group working from selected area in Malaysia such as Perak, Selangor and Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia. Future work may include mapping Malay cultural dimensions to Information Technology body of knowledge and various related various discipline such as human-computer interaction.