An international survey has found that, when “government” is mentioned, most Malaysians immediately think of “corruption”. Mention “corporations”, and Malaysian minds suddenly think “profit”.
The Corporate Perception Indicator 2014 survey, jointly conducted by CNBC and Burson-Martseller, asked 1,076 Malaysians – 75 executives and 1,001 members of the general public – the open-ended question “What is the first thing that comes to mind when you think of the government?”
“Corruption” was the overwhelmingly popular answer – although to be fair to Malaysia’s government, the same answer was also the most popular among respondents in most of the 25 countries involved in the survey.
The other countries in the survey include the United States, the UK, Indonesia, China, India, Mexico, Brazil, South Korea, Russia, the UAE, and South Africa.
A similarly open-ended question on “corporations” was met with “profit” as the most popular answer, putting Malaysians in the same group as respondents from Indonesia, India, Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong and South Korea.
Between the government and corporations, the Malaysian general public trusted government to best steer the local economy, at 33%, while 31% of Malaysian executives trusted corporations more to carry out the same task.
Out of all 25 countries surveyed, Malaysians were the most accepting of multinational corporations, with a 43% approval rate. 37% of respondents said it was a non-issue, while those supporting local corporations and those who had no preference each making up 10% of respondents.
Malaysians also believed the news media to be the most socially responsible industry, and wanted corporations to direct their corporate social responsibility efforts towards social welfare.
Out of 10 professions laid out, Malaysians chose “heads of government” as the most powerful and the most respected people in society.
The Malay Mail Online has more breakdowns from the CNBC-Burson-Martseller survey.
