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Corporate Downsizing in Malaysia

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Submitted By Anizah
Words 4476
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Asia Pacific Management Review (2003) 8(1), 27-42

The Practice of Corporate Downsizing during
Economic Downturn among Selected Companies in Malaysia
Junaidah Hashim* and Anizah Abu Bakar**
(received September 2002;revision received November 2002 ;accepted January 2003)
This paper examines the organizational strategies and the effects of corporate downsizing in Malaysia. It reports the results of a survey of 30 Malaysian companies that engaged in downsizing during the economic downturn. Three research questions are probed: 1) What are the general strategies used by companies to downsize, 2) What are the difficulties faced by companies during downsizing implementation, and 3) What are the impacts of downsizing on organizations. The findings show two main strategies are used for downsizing: work reduction and work redesign. The most serious impact of downsizing is organizational ineffectiveness.
Keywords: Corporate Downsizing; Malaysia; Economic Downturn

1. Introduction
The Asian economy downturn occurred recently is probably deeper and broader than many previous economic downturns. As a result, big organizations began actively trimming corporate staff, slashing management layers in addition to widespread cutbacks and lowering cost to give value to the customers.
The assumption underlying organizational performance and effectiveness in the last decades were bigger organizations are better organizations, unending growth is a natural and desirable work process, organizational adaptability and flexibility are associated with slack resources, loose coupling and redundancy, and, consistency and congruence are hallmarks of effective organization[3]. However, organizations have learned the lesson that size is sometimes a liability and decided that smaller, as well as bigger, also means better. Downsizing and decline are treated as natural and desirable phases of an

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