TALENT ECONOMICS RESEARCH
GENERATIONAL COHORTS IN BRUNEI DARUSSALAM PROJECT BY: SHAMSUL BAHARIN ABDUL RAHMAN
SUBMITTED TO TALENT ECONOMICS RESEARCH FOR CERTIFICATION PURPOSE ON 16 JUNE 2014
1 Hypotheses
The hypothesis of this research is that the generation cohorts of Brunei should not be the same of that of the commonly known United States (US) generation cohorts or any other country for that matter. This is due to the fact that each country in this world has its own distinct racial mix, cultures and languages. Most importantly these racial differences also represent the social, economical and political involvement of a particular country. (Zhong, Hole & Schwartz, 2010). In Brunei its populations is far different than that of the US and has different varieties of life experiences with different affiliations to different major events. This paper should be reflective of the unique nature of the Bruneian population.
2 Research Methodology
This research will be using mainly secondary data collected using quantitative methods and complimented with some primary data collected using qualitative methods.
3 Executive Summary
Based on various academic and historical documentations, generations in Brunei have their own unique characteristics that arise from its own unique culture, economics, and history. Brunei has its own race cluster where it has the race mix of Malays, Chinese, Indigenous and others. Within the Malay race, it was mainly made up of 7 sub-races of Brunei Malay, Kedayan, Tutong, Belait, Dusun, Murut and Visaya. Despite such diversities, homogeneity is a factor that is commonly associated due to it being a small country of 5765 square kilometers and small population of 400,000 people. More importantly, 90% of this population lives in close proximity within the coastal areas of the country that is less than 150 kilometres long and accounted for only about 15% of the country’s area.
Moreover despite the impact of the country’s political history having diverse sociological factors that are not necessarily the same for every race, such differences are largely marginal
Today Brunei is having practically all the generations in the workplace, although the pre-independence generation is largely approaching retirement age. While neighbouring countries like Singapore is facing the ageing workforce challenge, Brunei on the other hand is facing a different challenge of accommodating a new wave of young workforce in the labour market. At the backdrop of the increasingly highly-educated post-independence generation, stagnant labour market, an economy largely dependent on oil and gas, slow diversification progress and businesses mostly driven by the government sector, employers in Brunei are facing a truly unique “Bruneish” issues to deal with. This paper therefore identified that there is a need for fundamental shift in the way age is being viewed at the workplace using Bruneian background as an anchor, a need to come up with an all-inclusive Brunei-relevant employee value proposition that will motivate employees individually.
4 Definition of Generational Cohorts
Therefore a definition of a generation is a group of people that share a set of experiences that exhibit a shared worldview which they carried throughout their entire lives. The length of a generation will be roughly from the birth of the cohort (or group) of people to the time they come of age and start having their own children (Codrington, 2011). 5 Bruneian Generational Cohorts Analysis
This analysis and the eventual generational cohorts which are specific to the Bruneian environments that came with it were made based on the two primary assumptions proposed by Codrington (2011). First, the socialisation hypothesis suggests that adults’ values were formed during childhood and the early teenage years and that these basic values stay relatively stable throughout the adults’ lives. Secondly, social constructivist theory suggests that reality is socially constructed by individuals and groups engaged in social interactions.
A study by Ting, Run and Fame (2012), about generational cohorts in Sarawak, stated that people become susceptible to major happenings as early as 14 or 15 years old and formative years tend to take place late at adolescence years and lasts between the age of 24 to 27. Their study use age as a proxy variable to develop cases.
6 Findings
The findings from 224 participants confirmed that the first proposition about the major societal events experienced and recalled by the people in Brunei are different from that of the people in the US holds true. For example, Bruneians in their 50s to 60s did not mention Vietnam War. Even taking into accounts the nearest neighbour Malaysia, none of the respondents in their 50s and 60s affiliate closely with Singapore’s withdrawal from Malaysia or Indonesia’s recalled anything about the Indonesia-Malaysia Confrontation in the 60s. Instead they were more commonly recalled the events leading to the formation of Malaysia in 1963 although rather because of Brunei’s decision not to join it. The same generation were mostly familiar with the period after World War II and Brunei’s Rebellion period in 1962 to 1963.
Conversely speaking, the Generation X in the US certainly did not experience the independence of Brunei, nor would Generation X give any account on the Limbang conflict between Brunei and Malaysia in 1970 to 1973 (Abu Bakar, 2006). Although similarity can be seen in younger generations in mentioning global events such as the incident of 911 and the Y2K issue at the turn of the century, it does not warrant uniformity. Suffice to say on this premise that generational description in the US or any other country cannot be generalised to Brunei.
The findings also show that the major societal events recalled by every age-group are significantly different. Out of 94 respondents who mentioned the events just before and immediately Brunei’s independence in 1984 as a major event, all of them are between 46 to 67 years old. This group of respondents could strongly associate themselves with the 1962 rebellion period although many of them were not yet born during that period. This was mainly because of their association with the after-events that went with it where a number of strong national and patriotism awareness campaigns were made by the government agencies to avoid repetition of such event. They commonly shared the events where the passing away of Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah’s mother in 1979 and father in 1986 as saddening times for Bruneians. This generation is proposed to be known as Mahrum Puspa in reference to the hard work being done by the late father of the current Sultan of Brunei to make Brunei an independent country which created a strong wave of nationalism amongst the country’s population (Hussainmiya, 2006).
Tanglung Generation. Tanglung is a celebration event that was held from the 1960s well into the 1990s which is although not specific to the pre-independent generation but was rather considered something that they mostly treasure in memory of this generation in comparison to the Mahrum Puspa Generation who remember it only as a common national event.
As far as the age-group of 16 to 31 is concerned, all 58 respondents recalled the incidents of the missing of MH370 flight that happened recently but only half of them recalled the tsunamis in Aceh. Despite many of them not remembering anything about the Y2K event in the years 1999-2000, all of them identified strongly with the internet as the biggest influence of their lives. Moreover, all of them highlighted the period of Bruneians accessing the internet by looking for free hotspots or wifi that began in around 2002 until lately as their favourite social pastime. None of them could recall anything about the events that occurred during Brunei’s independence year of 1984. This generation is proposed to be called the Independent Generation or the Wifi in reference to their fondness of that technology.
Having put the particular major societal events recalled by each and every age-group in perspective, it is possible to assess whether these events occurred during late adolescent and early adulthood years respectively. Even though there are cross-over effects or overlaps between these three age-groups, the collective memories of the events do suggest that individuals are particular susceptible to major happenings during their coming-of-age years, which in this article is identified as 16 and above.
BORN GENERATION CUT-OFF
1983 – 1998 Independent or
common, dual income parents, influenced by social media
appreciatio
n younger onesjust about entering tertiary education Table 1
7 Limitations and Recommendations
This paper is probably the first article that attempts to define generational cohorts in Brunei. It is acknowledged the obvious limitation of this attempt is lack of reference data as well as potential overlap between the defined generations within the Bruniean context. Therefore, it should be noted that the categorisation of the Bruneian generational cohorts in this paper is suggestive in nature and still at exploration and experimentation stage. More systematic efforts need to be made in future to more clearly identify the similarities and differences between the six Bruneian generations in order to support their propositions. Therefore further studies to finetune and improve Brunei’s generational cohorts categorisation would need to be encouraged.
Nonetheless, hopefully this paper will play a pivotal role as a catalyst of Brunei’s generational studies either by academics or practitioners in the near future. This is especially important for organisations in the business world. Organisations find that understanding generational differences can result in improved morale, a more successful business, and in turn, satisfied stakeholders.
Brunei needs to develop a strategy that will be all inclusive in terms of its workforce planning. Initiatives to creating an all-inclusive workplace:
i) Facilitate the productive coexistence of multi-generational workforce through targetive rewards packages
ii) Create a workplace that embraces homogeneity and/or diversity (Malays and non-Malays equally welcome)
iii) Some generations analysed in this paper have retired and others are close to their retirement age therefore there is a need for a strategy where the older generation will eventually help the transfer of power to the younger ones much easier.
iv) Conduct age profile analysis for recruitment and development purposes
Codrington, G. 2011. Detailed Introduction to Generational Theory in Asia: Applying generational theory to the countries of Asia, South East Asia and the Asia-Pacific regions
Tomorrow Today. Retrieved 10 June 2014 from
http://tomorrowtoday.uk.com/articles/article044_generations_in_asia.htm Hole D., Zhong L.E & Schwartz, J. 2010. Talking About Whose Generation?: Deloitte Review, Issue No 6.
Hussainmiya, B. A. 2006. Brunei Revival of 1906: A Popular History. Bandar Seri Begawan:Brunei Press.
Mattes, R. 2011. The Born Frees: The Prospects for Generational Change in Post-Apartheid South Africa. (Working Paper No. 131). Retrieved 21 June, 2014, from http://afrobarometer.org
Abu Bakar, N. S. 2006. Brunei's Political Development Between 1966 and 1984 : Challenges and Difficulties Over its Security and Survival. PhD thesis, University of Leeds.
