This study on national culture and identity involves qualitative and quantitative approaches and conducted two phases. The first phase focused on the identification of the criteria that influence national culture and identity of Malaysian nation. The second phase involved the measurement of the current state of the Malaysian nation based on each identified.

Phase I: Multi-criteria analysis on national culture and identity

The national culture and identity of Malaysia are based on 18 influential criteria that have been explored and identified in our study. These criteria were identified through rigorous literature reviews and expert opinions. In this phase, a weighting method is used to evaluate the significance of each criterion towards national culture and identity. The criteria are affiliation, community embeddedness, respecting elders, congruence, faith, brotherhood, morality, future orientation, conformity, survival, tolerance, mutual understanding, clothing, food, symbol, language, music and communication. The identification of national culture and identity criteria acts as the basis for developing a multi-criteria harmony index to measure the level of compliance which contribute to a harmonious relationship among various ethnics in the country.

Phase II: Malaysian Harmony Index

A novel multi-criteria analysis framework utilizing the scoring computation strategy is developed. The objective of the framework is to strategize on the main procedures involving several multi-criteria methods and analyses. In doing so, a questionnaire was constructed consisting of two sections which are the ideal and observed situations. The ideal is the situation or quality where the people are desire to have for that particular criterion in their community, while observe is the current situation happened or the quality of that criterion in the community. The overall performance of the various proposed scoring models is evaluated. Finally, the best scoring model provides values which are used as index for the harmonious situation in Malaysia. The index shows the current state of culture and identity that the Malaysians have while, the ideal index provides the culture and identity that the Malaysians aim to have.

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1. Affiliation: Individuals are part of a community.
2. Community Embeddedness: Communities are formed from outside of work forces that preserve individual origins, where geographic areas will affected individual’s family life and occupation.
3. Respecting Elders: Individual’s attitudes and behaviours shown to an older person as appreciation of their feelings and opinions.
4. Congruence: Individuals who are concerned about good relationships and trying to avoid any possible conflicts that can lead to disputes and conflicts.
5. Faith: Individual beliefs of a Supreme Power as a guide of life, including those passed down by their ancestors.
6. Brotherhood: Individual agreement in a community in which there is a common interest, tolerance in religion and trade relations.
7. Morality: Determining and assessing an act which to be done is correct or false through the honesty, sincerity and reliability of the individual.
8. Future Orientation: The individual's ability to think and plan the future which are parallel to the action in achieving the goals set.
9. Conformity: Individual’s tendencies to act in line with deeds, behaviours and beliefs for the welfare of a group.
10. Survival: Individual actions in defending the customs, cultures, traditions and beliefs of previous ancestors for the next generation.
11. Tolerance: The willingness to accept and recognize differences in the views, wants, attitudes, practices and beliefs of others to create or maintain good relationships with each other.
12. Mutual Understanding: Unity and practice tolerance between one another to foster feelings of belonging.
13. Clothing: Stylish clothing to symbolize membership or status within a group.
14. Food: The use of materials and the way of providing food in a society.
15. Symbol: Objects that symbolize a community's cultural heritage.
16. Language: The medium of conversation of a nation includes the national language.
17. Music: Sound production through tools that illustrate the history and culture of a nation.
18. Communication: The process of communicating information between the parties involved.