I left full time employment in 2003 and since then I have been talking about Malaysian culture to adult students at both local and foreign universities, foreign managers from different countries who are working with Malaysians and Malaysian managers who are working in multicultural work settings.
Most foreign managers - be they Germans, French, Americans, Australians and canadians I work with have several issues with their Malaysian staff. Some of the more general comments are that we Malaysians are rather laid back, not proactive enough, not concerned about time and not easy to get commitment, always say yea but do not fulfil their promises. So the challenge for them are to make Malaysians take charge, able to work on their own, speak up and if they want to be part of a global workforce they have to discard some of their habits and take on behaviours which can be initially discomforting.
