Population and sampling
The target population of this study were the middle and top managers working in the
Malaysian manufacturing firms operating in the four industries classified by OECD
(1997) as high-tech: Aerospace, Computers and office machinery, Electronics and
communication and Pharmaceuticals. Two sample frames were used: the first one
was taken from Malaysian Manufacturers’ Directory (2011) for Computers and
Office Machinery, Electronics and Communication and Pharmaceuticals industries. As
Aerospace firms were not indexed in the Malaysian Manufacturers’ Directory (2011),
the second sampling frame was retrieved from the Aerospace Industry Report (AIR)
Online Database which is run by the Malaysian Aerospace Council (MAC). In total,
900 questionnaires were distributed by email and in person; 366 were returned. After
data coding and entry, 27 responses were found to have more than 10 percent missing
values or outliers and were therefore discarded (Hair et al., 2010). Finally 339 useable
responses were used for data analysis. This represents a response rate of 37.70 percent.