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Organisational change and success in a government enterprise: Malaysia’s Federal Land Development Agency

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2023

Michael O’Donnell ,
Norma Binit Mansor ,
Kunaraguru Yogeesvaran  and
Azlan Rashid
Michael O’Donnell*
Affiliation:
UNSW Canberra, Australia
Norma Binit Mansor
Affiliation:
University of Malaya, Malaysia
Kunaraguru Yogeesvaran
Affiliation:
Economic Planning Unit, Prime Minister’s Department, Malaysia
Azlan Rashid
Affiliation:
Economic Planning Unit, Prime Minister’s Department, Malaysia
*
Michael O’Donnell, School of Business, UNSW Canberra, Northcott Drive, Campbell, ACT 2612, Australia. Email: m.odonnell@adfa.edu.au
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Abstract

This article charts and analyses the change path and various transformations of Malaysia’s state-owned enterprise, the Federal Land Development Agency, from its establishment in the 1960s to the present. The analysis supports arguments that the model of the developmental state, based on planned public/private cooperation, provides an alternative policy prescription to that of sole reliance on the self-regulating market. The Federal Land Development Agency is shown not only to have survived but also to have thrived as an economic development arm of the Malaysian state, successfully adapting to the changing environment in which it operates. To delineate the changes, a framework of punctuated equilibrium is utilised as it best captures the instances of rapid discontinuous change and the periods of incremental change and relative stability.

Keywords

L73O13O21P41Q15Developmental stateeconomic developmentFELDAland settlementMalaysiapunctuated equilibriumstate-owned enterprises
Type
Articles
Information
The Economic and Labour Relations Review , Volume 28 , Issue 2: Industry policies, financialisation and globalisation , June 2017 , pp. 234 - 251
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s) 2017

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