Human resource factors, culture, and effective disaster response moderated by leadership styles in Malaysia Army

Malaysia Armed forces plays an assisting role during any disaster response mission and this is accorded in the MNSC Directive 20. Having an effective disaster response is crucial to the Malaysian Infantry. Malaysia Armed forces should be well trained and has good knowledge in war and able to provide assistance and support during peacetime or operation other than war (OOTW). Nevertheless, at the same time organizational culture plays a vital role in ensuring morale, training, commitment, and safety as these factors influences effective disaster response management. Therefore, the main objective of this study is to examine factors affecting effective disaster response. The research philosophy of this study is post-positivism. The research design of this study is descriptive and correlational, applying quantitative research method. The respondents of this study are 1764 infantry personnel’s consisting of officers and other ranks in Malaysia in which the samples were by selected using simple random sampling method. The questionnaire survey was analyzed using SPSS version 22.0
and Smart PLS version 3.0 in which descriptive analysis, correlational analysis, algorithms and bootstrapping were performed. Through the descriptive data analysis, this study found that the infantry personnel have high level of morale, training, commitment, and safety. It is also indicated that culture has a high level of influence in achieving effective disaster response These findings are further confirmed through the regression analysis in which it was found that all human resource elements i.e. morale, training, commitment, safety as well as culture have a high significant positive influence towards effective disaster response and leadership style in the Infantry Corp. This study also found that the relationship between leadership style and effective disaster response is positively significant. Through the moderation analysis in
determining the moderating effects of leadership style on the relationship between human resource elements i.e. morale, training, commitment, and safety, it is found that there is no moderating effect. Thus, leadership styles do not play any moderating role in the relationship between morale, training, commitment, and safety with effective
disaster response. This study can contribute towards expanding the literature and body of knowledge in understanding Disaster Response management. Furthermore, it is also highlighting the usefulness of emergency management theory, resilience theory, planned behavior theory and transformational leadership theory by examining the
direct effect and moderating effect with their associated variable. Besides that, this study also emphasized the importance of human resource element in order to conduct
a success disaster response operation.