Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Public Policy and Social Science, UiTM

Sabah Malaysia, December 2013

ISBN XXXXXX

AN INSIGHT INTO CRISIS MANAGEMENT IN THE

MALAYSIAN PUBLIC SECTOR
Noorie Haryaniee Moulton¹ , Haidy Henry Dusim², Ibianaflorinciliana Niane Anthony Aning³, Lenny
4 5
James Matah & Roslan Mokhtar
1
Faculty of Administrative Science and Policy Studies, Universiti Teknologi MARA(UiTM), Malaysia
[email protected]
2
Faculty of Administrative Science and Policy Studies, Universiti Teknologi MARA(UiTM), Malaysia
[email protected]
3
Faculty of Administrative Science and Policy Studies, Universiti Teknologi MARA(UiTM), Malaysia
[email protected]
4
Faculty of Law, Universiti Teknologi MARA(UiTM), Malaysia
[email protected]
5
Akademi Pengajian Bahasa, Universiti Teknologi MARA(UiTM), Malaysia
[email protected]

ABSTRACT

Every organization has to be prepared with its plan of action should it encounter any crisis in the
future. In general, crisis management activities include forecasting the potential crisis and planning
how to deal with them. Crisis is the uncertain situation that may lead to negative incidents for instance
technology failure, labor strikes and others causing the demise of an organization. A crisis can hit
even if a well-prepared plan has been put in place. The impact of any crisis can be minimized by a
well-prepared plan. This concept paper explores the literature review in analyzing the crisis
management implementation in Malaysia especially in the public sector. Findings revealed that there
are one circular have been circulated to government departments as a guideline. However the plan is
not holistic. It covers only on technological aspect, mainly due to the lack of awareness and
knowledge about crisis management. In addition, the government only solved a crisis after it has hit
the nation. Without proper actions, this situation may bring harm to any organization’s reputation.
Therefore, a well-prepared crisis management policy can be implemented to handle and/or avoid
unforeseen circumstances.

Keywords: Crisis Management, Public Sector

BACKGROUND

Today, crisis management is the most important part of an organization. It can be

proved where Asian companies have shown increasing numbers in their crisis management
plans (Low, 2007). Mitroff, Shrivastava & Udwadia (1987) stated that crises such as pollution,
industrial accidents, and product defects cause negative consequences for many
corporations to the extent of bankruptcy.
Crisis management plan is being prepared to handle adversity and to minimize cost
effectively besides facilitating the management process during the chaos (Sapriel, 2003).
Crisis happens at any time without notice. It can become the worst nightmare for an
organization if it does not have any plan to overcome the situation. A crisis is also classified
as a threat to the organization, damaging the reputation of the organization in the eyes of the
stakeholders and public as well. Public develops negative perceptions that eventually affect
the productivity of the organization.
Lerbingers (1997) identifies seven types of crisis that organizations may face ; natural
disaster, technological disaster, crises confrontation, acts of malevolence, misplaced
management values, acts of deception and management misconducts. These crises may
severely harm the reputation of the organization without any proper plan of action.

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In Malaysia, crisis management seems to be applied by most companies. The

companies have prepared with their own crisis management plan to reduce the damages if
the crisis occurred. Engr (2007) stated SIRIM Berhad has developed their own standard
guideline for crisis management. This standard aims to provide the concept of and a
complete guideline to implement crisis management and also sets out a process. However,
the Malaysian government in handling a crisis is still slow. It was proved by the Highland
Tower tragedy, whereby the government was slow in taking action and always relies on
assistance from foreign countries.
Therefore, this study attempts to understand crisis management implementation in
the Malaysian public sector by looking at several research that have been conducted in
Malaysia and to discuss the importance of crisis management of the organization.

LITERATURE REVIEW

The term crisis management starts from a cold war (Pfaltzgraff, 2008). The cold war
is an ideological conflict between capitalist and communist. Pfaltzgraff (2008) mentioned that,
the crisis between United State and Soviet Union bring the creation of crisis management.
Where united state struggle to find a way to manage the crisis to avoid escalating of nuclear
war. Then after that, the crisis management has faced several phases. It was started with
terrorism activities that affected world harmonies and several tragedies for instance tragedy
9/11. Until now, either government or companies were prepared by the plan to avoid the
damages to occur.
There are many scholars come up with their own definition toward the crisis
management. Smith (1990) classifies crisis into three phases, and they are:
1. Creeping crisis- foreshadowed by a series of events that decision makers do not
view as part of a pattern.
2. Slow-burn crisis- some advance warning before the situation has caused any
actual damage.
3. Sudden crisis- damage has already occurred and will get worse if the
management does not respond.
In addition, Keown-McMullan, (1997) points out that crises are generally caused
either by internal influence or external forces. An example of internal influence is illegal
activities or industrial accident whereby external forces refer to the natural disaster or
terrorism. It will harm the organization’s goodwill or reputation if they are not ready with a
crisis management plan. Carter (1997) agrees that, the crisis event will significantly change
an organization's sales, products, services, financial conditions and reputation. This is
because crises are uncertain situations and negative incidents.

IMPORTANCE OF CRISIS MANAGEMENT

Since 1980s, the field of crisis management has been characterized by two main
trends which are plans in crisis management and the analysis of organizational
contingencies during a crisis (Lalonde, 2007). The crisis management plan can be the best
instrument for organizations to minimize damages because the plan is a step or process in
solving any crisis. However, many organizations fail to put it as their priority and this in turn,
affect the organizations’ performance because they do not have a backup strategy, should
any crisis occur. According to Smith (1990), crisis management is a process that includes
two objectives: to prevent damaging incidents from taking place and to mitigate the impact of
such events when prevention fails. By implementing a proper crisis management plan,
preventive action can be taken to prevent unexpected tragedies in the future.
A crisis management process is needed to control the damage and protect or restore
public confidence, thus, every organization should give priority and urgency to any crisis by
looking at a different routine problem or issue (Efficiency Unit, 2009). Crisis management

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does not start when a crisis arises and ends but way before a crisis happens. It was
supported by Evans & Elplhick (2005) study, where crisis management can be seen as 4Rs,
which consist of four-stage process of reduction, readiness, response and recovery. The 4Rs
are the emergency management approach. Each of the 4Rs requires action at individual,
business, community and government levels. Therefore, the organization is urged to
continually update its crisis management policies by always responding to the changes in the
industry. Regester & Larkin (2005) came out with the guiding principles of crisis management
namely, develop a positive attitude towards crisis management; bring performance
throughout the organization into line with public expectation; build credibility through a
succession of responsible deeds; and seek and act on the opportunities during a crisis.
Crisis management in the public sector has been seen as an outcome and as part of
an organizational repertoire and to maintain the relevance in the face of changing social
needs (Barnes, 2001). This is because the world has changed and encountered several
unexpected emergency events. Barnes (2001) found that lack of decision readiness and
unrealistic assumptions about roles and actions to be carried out by relevant actors were the
biggest problem for the public sector. The public sector does not seem to be ready with the
crisis management plan because it fails to take adequate preventive efforts.
A financial crisis that occurs in 1997 become a starting point for Malaysia government
in implementation of crisis management plan. The financial crisis in Malaysia came upon the
country suddenly at a time when it was enjoying high rates of growth (Nambiar, 2003).
Nambiar (2003) has mentioned, the crisis brought the government, academics and policy
makers back to the drawing board. It is because during that time, Malaysia does not have
any plan to overcome the crisis and government had to introduce a policy to overcome the
financial crisis after the crisis hit.
Malaysia has taken some step to overcome the issue of crisis management. In 2005, the
Malaysian government has introduced a circular about the public sector information security
risk assessment. This circular has been introduced after several issues about technology
occurred in public sector website. The Malaysian Administrative Modernisation and
Management Planning Unit (MAMPU) stated that the Public Sector Information Security Risk
Assessment Guideline is to emphasize the importance of implementing risk assessment in
the Public Sector and the circular provides methods and techniques used in the process of
implementing a systematic and effective information security risk assessment. According to
the circular, the threats such as impersonation, malicious code, misuse of data, easily
available penetration tools, powerful analytical techniques contribute in whole or in part to the
necessity of providing adequate protection of public sector ICT assets. These threats if left
unchecked, will result in a painful explanation at the very minimum or untold damage to the
country. Besides that, it also can affect the financial and will give negative implication
towards the integrity and availability of official government information.

DISCUSSION

In Malaysia, there are limited literature review about crisis management

implementation in the public sector. However, this study tries to explore several research that
are related in this paper by analyzing the result to see the implementation of crisis
management generally. Most of the studies of those research look at the awareness and the
process taken by the companies in terms of crisis management. The findings of these
studies may be limited but it will provide some insight about crisis management
implementation in the Malaysian public sector.
Beside that, a study by Hayati, Noryati and Catherine (2010) on crisis management at
the Taman Negara National Park, Kuala Tahan, Pahang reported that Taman Negara service
providers are generally unaware of any formal structure or system to handle crisis situations.
They added that, there is no written crisis manual but many issues are communicated
through memos and letters. Most emergency situations were overcome through cooperation

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among service providers and rescue teams. It is also reported that all accidents and near
misses are recorded but respondents are unaware where the information is stored. Hayati et
all. (2010) also reported that, a meeting is held to discuss about any incident or crisis but the
formal report is not prepared. However until now none of the crisis diminishes the Taman
Negara reputation. The crisis operation center in Taman Negara Pahang has not been
implemented and there is no fund or budget to improving the crisis management activities. It
showed that there are awareness about the crisis but the implementation of crisis
management effectively is still slow and weak.
Crisis management is one of the primary roles of government. However, Putra (2008)
mentioned, where most government departments are not paying attention towards crisis
management issues. This is because crisis is unpredictable and the government does not
plan well but rather responds and embraces crisis when it happens. He stated that,
government responsible in dealing with different crises for instance economic crisis, flood in
Johor, tsunami at Penang, the collapse of Highland Tower in Selangor and many more. The
government only has a crisis management plan after the crisis hit the nation and usually the
fire and police department and also the National Guard are often playing important roles in
crisis situations. It was supported by Darling (1994) sometime organizations did not realize
that they were facing the crisis because the top management failed to fully disclose the
information and most of the employees did not have adequate knowledge to identify the
likelihood of crisis to happen.
According to Putra (2008), the traditional public administration focuses only on
planned and programmed activities, meaning those passed through long public policy
making phases and procedures. This process creates the general perception of public
administration as a science in which organizational and bureaucratic routines become the
main concern. The public sector only depends on the ongoing process or procedure in which
the potential risk is highlighted without having the process to handle unexpected events that
threaten the organization. It was supported by circular of Public Sector Information Security
Risk Assessment Guideline that was introduced in 2005, where the government highlighted
a certain issue about technological matters. Even though the circular only related to specific
issue but it can help the public sector to handle any crisis that related to the technological
aspect. According to Abdul Rahman & Yusri (2013), the circular has assisted International
Islamic University Malaysia, a public university, to implement and managed information
technology security and risks in the organization. However this is more on risk management
where they only highlighted the potential risk without establishing the process to handle the
other unexpected events.
Dr. Devan Kurup who is from the Disease Control Division (2010) mentioned that, the
Ministry of Health has established the Crisis Preparedness And Response Centre (CPRC).
The CPRC is a central command and coordination centre for all outbreak response activities
and compiles and monitor all information on outbreak response activities. Dr. Devan also
stated that the effectiveness of crisis management depends on preparedness, which includes
infrastructure, trained personnel and adequate funding, clear line of communication and
chain of command and also the preparation for the element of surprise and for the worst
case scenario. Dr. Devan stated that, the ministry is trying to avoid several threat for example
Avian influenza (H5N1) in 2004 and Pandemic H1N1 2009 to be happening again in the
future. This epidermic may harm the healthiness of Malaysian community and will bring the
biggest challenges to the government in the form of financial.
Fontain (2012) has done a research about the perception of Malaysia managers
about crisis management implementation. The study found that, manager in Malaysia faced
symptoms of chronic crisis management. Chronic crisis management refers to the managers
rush from one problem to another without having the time to solve problems effectively.
Fontain (2012) added that they often deal with the symptoms but fail to address the root
causes of the problem. It clearly shows that, the managers are trying to solve the variety of
crises at one time without having a standard procedure. It was supported by Bohn (2000),

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where chronic crisis management is a global problem. It can be found in organizations

around the world. He mentioned many organizations are based on a flawed mindset, such as
competition among employees instead of cooperation. The employees try to prove that they
are excellent and have capabilities in term of solving any issue.
From the findings above, it can be stated that crisis management in the Malaysian
public sector is being implemented. Whereby the public sector awareness about crisis
management is exist but the implementation is still slow and weak. There are several
weaknesses that can be seen from the findings, where Haiyati et all (2010) mentioned about
lacking on fund to improve the crisis management implementation and some of the
information does not keep properly. Other than that, public employee did not have adequate
knowledge to identify the root of the crisis due to lacking of communication from top to lower
level management and training program. In addition, the government only has a crisis
management after any crisis hit this nation (Putra, 2008). Its show that, government not
prepared with any strategy of any crisis and only created the crisis management after the
crisis has affected the country. Even though government introduced a circular but the circular
only for a specific issue, for instance the circular of Public Sector Information Security Risk
Assessment Guideline and Crisis Preparedness and Response Centre (CPRC) for Ministry
of Health. The question is what will happen if something occur and it cannot be coped with
only those procedures?

CONCLUSION

Crisis management implementation in the Malaysian public sector is still in progress.

There is a guideline that the government of Malaysia has introduced to act as a backup
strategy. However, the circular only covered certain areas or functions of the government,
whereas crises can occur any time . It was not clearly stated about the crisis management
procedure in general that can assist the public sector if they face unexpected situations.
This study suggest that, an effective crisis management can assists the organization
to overcome any unexpected incidents. The public sector may improve their crisis
management implementation by providing a good training program and should have good
communication between top and lower level management. Where Penrose (2004) states
communication needs to take part before, during and after a crisis situation. Communication
is the way for the management to deliver and get the information by involving all staff in their
department. Other than good communication, Priporas & Vangelinos (2008) found that by
providing training to the employees it will help the organization to have better crisis
management plan. It is because the training will increase employee awareness about crisis
management and they know how to respond if a crisis occurred. Besides that, organizations
need to prepare for potential crises by appointing teams that are trained in handling crisis
communication (Baker & Horsley 2007). The crisis management unit must be created in
order to have an expert resource in developing the plan. The unit will help the organization in
term of providing the steps and information if any crisis occurred. The government may
establish one stop center that will assist all public sector in Malaysia by providing information
about any potential crisis and procedure to overcome the crisis.
This concept paper may provide limited information about the crisis management in
the Malaysian public sector due to the limited literature review about it in Malaysia. However
this paper provides some information about crisis management development in Malaysia and
it can be starting point for the next research. This paper will be continued with a case study in
several government departments to see the implementation of crisis management. The result
of the study will provide some information to other writers who are interested in this field and
to prove the findings of this paper.

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