The 14th General Election and the Changing Business Environment in a “New” Malaysia

Abstract

Over the past few decades, there has been a growing tendency towards democratic forms of governance and market-based systems. Businesses need to understand the changing marketing environment in a country as the global market needs differ from the local context. Since gaining independence in 1957, Malaysia has been governed by a single political coalition, the Barisan Nasional (BN) which comprises three major race-based parties, and ruled as a hybrid political regime, turning Malaysia into an illiberal democracy. The 14th General Election (GE) witnessed the end of the world’s longest-ruling coalition government. The aim of this paper is (i) to understand how macro-environmental factors influence the business environment (ii) to investigate how various stakeholders can take advantage of the changing business environment to increase profitability (iii) to further examine the macro-environmental forces vis-á-vis the recent change in government at the recent 14th General Election.