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The objectives of this present study are twofold. First, it aims to investigate the performance objectives of PPP implementation in Malaysia. Second, it aims to examine the differences in the perceptions of two PPP key players – the public and private sectors – pertaining to the performance objectives.

A questionnaire survey was used to elicit the perceptions of the public and private sectors concerning the performance objectives of PPP projects in Malaysia; 237 usable responses were obtained and analysed using SPSS to rank the importance of the performance objectives and to examine the differences in the perceptions between the government and private sectors.

The results reveal that the five most important performance objectives for PPP implementation in Malaysia based on overall respondents’ perceptions are “High-quality public service”, “Provide convenient service for society”, “Within or under budget”, “On-time or earlier” and “Satisfy the need for more public facilities”. As for differences in the perceptions of the two key players, only one objective was perceived as statistically more important by the public sector respondents than by their private sector counterparts.

The contribution of this paper is that it not only provides empirical evidence for the performance objectives for PPP implementation in Malaysia, but also offers evidence concerning the differences in the perceptions of the public and private sectors pertaining to the performance objectives.

This paper has two objectives. The first objective is to examine the important performance indicators of the lifecycle process of public private partnership (PPP) projects. The second objective is to investigate the difference in the perception of the importance of the performance indicators between the public and private sectors.

To achieve the research objectives, the study used a questionnaire survey. The questionnaire was distributed via postal mail to officers of government departments and private sector companies who may have been involved in PPP projects. A total of 237 completed questionnaires were received, representing a 51.52% response rate. To examine the importance of performance indicators, the descriptive statistical tests of mean, standard deviation and mean score ranking were used. Independent t-tests were conducted to investigate the differences in the perceptions of the importance of performance indicators between the two respondent groups.

The findings show that all the 16 performance indicators are perceived as important and very important. The top five important performance indicators for a PPP project lifecycle process are “Time management”, “Contractual management”, “Cost management”, “Safety management” and “Effective risk management system”, while “stress or conflicts management” is the least important. In terms of the differences in the perception of the public and private sector groups, the results indicate that four indicators (“environment protection”, “cost management”, “effective risk management system” and “good work environment”), show a significant statistical difference between the perception of the public and the private sector respondents.

This study offers empirical evidence on key performance indicators for a PPP project that are crucial throughout its lifecycle as perceived by two key parties in a PPP contract, i.e. the public and the private sectors.

The purpose of this paper is twofold: first, it seeks the perception of public-private partnership (PPP) experts on the importance of desirable PPP information that can be voluntarily reported by the private sector; and second, it determines the extent and quality of voluntary disclosure of PPP information by private entities.

In achieving the first objective, the study uses a questionnaire survey. The questionnaire was distributed to PPP experts and 25 usable responses were received. In addressing the second objective, a content analysis procedure was utilized to analyse the 2015 annual reports of 11 construction companies. Descriptive statistics including the mean score, frequency and percentage were employed to analyse the responses of the questionnaire instrument and the annual reports disclosure.

The results of the questionnaire survey reveal that the majority of the items were rated as very important to be disclosed by the private sector in Malaysia. However, from the content analysis, it was also revealed that the extent and quality of voluntary information disclosed by the private construction companies were low.

This study is important as it contributes to the scant literature on PPP disclosure in Malaysia. The study is unique as it not only investigated the extent and quality of voluntary disclosure by private entities, but also solicited the perception of PPP experts on what voluntary items should be disclosed.

The objective of this study is to examine the perceived usefulness of accrual accounting-based financial information for accountability and for supporting decision-making in public sector organisations.

A questionnaire survey adapted from Kober et al. (2010) was used to survey Malaysian Federal Government accountants to ascertain their views on the usefulness of accrual accounting information across 12 situations regarding accountability and decision-making. Mean scores and mean score ranking were computed on a total of 165 usable responses received. The independent t-test was conducted to investigate the differences in the perception between “accountants with” and the “accountants without” prior work experience in the private sector.

The study provides evidence that Malaysian Federal Government accountants consider accrual accounting information as very useful for decision-making. The three most important decision-usefulness indicators in the survey are “To assist in managing the department’s assets and liabilities”, “To assess cash flow needs of a department” and “For departmental resource allocation decisions”. The least useful accrual accounting information as perceived by the Malaysian public sector accountants is “To assist in discharging the department’s accountability obligations”.

The study provides valuable insights into the extent to which accrual accounting information is considered useful for accountability and decision-making, lending support to the Malaysian Government’s reform agenda of moving towards using accrual accounting in public sector organisations at the federal level.

The purpose of this paper is twofold: first, to identify the important performance indicators used in assessing public private partnership (PPP) performance in terms of the two aspects of PPP which are “financing and markets” and “innovation and learnings”; and second, to investigate the differences in the perception between public and private sectors on the importance of performance indicators in terms of the two aspects of PPP.

Using a questionnaire survey, 237 completed questionnaires were received representing 51.52 per cent response rate. In examining the importance of performance indicators, the descriptive statistical tests of mean, standard deviation and mean score ranking were used. The independent t-tests were conducted to investigate the differences in the perceptions between the two respondents’ groups on the importance of performance indicators.

In relation to the two areas of indicators used in assessing PPP performance, the findings show that the top three important performance indicators for financing and markets are: “Operational cost”, “Construction cost” and “Construction period”. While the top three important performance indicators for innovation and learning are: “Technology innovation”, “Employee training” and “Financial innovation”. In terms of the differences in the perceptions between the public and private sector groups, the test results indicate that there is only one significant statistical difference for each aspect of performance indicators.

This study offers empirical evidence on key financial performance indicators for PPP projects as perceived by two key parties in a PPP contract that are public and private sectors.

This paper aims to identify the influence of personal factors on the ethical judgement of future accountants in Malaysia. In particular, there are two research objectives for this study: first, to investigate the influence of ethical ideology on the ethical judgement of accounting students and second, to investigate the influence of emotional intelligence (EI) on ethical judgement.

The respondents of the study were final year undergraduate accounting students from three public universities in Malaysia. A survey questionnaire comprising instruments about ethical ideology, EI and ethical judgement was distributed. A total of 205 responses were received and were deemed as useable. To achieve the research objectives, multiple regression was performed.

The findings indicate that idealism and EI have a positive influence on the ethical judgement. In contrast, the study discovered that relativism influences ethical judgement negatively.

This study fills the research gap as research on personal factors on the ethical judgement of future accountants is very limited and scarce. It gives insights to the various parties concerning how to enhance ethical judgement among future accountants, which ultimately will improve the credibility of the accounting profession.

The objectives of this paper are two-fold: first, to empirically compare and contrast the salient features of three financial instruments (FIs), namely sustainable and responsible investment (SRI) ṣukūk, social impact bonds (SIBs) and conventional bonds (CBs) and second, to examine the differences between the perceptions of the investors and the developers on the features of the three FIs.

Using a questionnaire survey, 251 completed and useable responses were received, representing a 42.54% response rate. In examining the differences and similarities in the characteristics of the three FIs, the inferential statistical of frequency and percentage were used. Wilcoxon and Mann–Whitney tests were conducted to investigate the differences in the salient features of the three FIs and the differences between the investors and developers' perceptions on the salient features of SRI ṣukūk, SIBs and CBs, respectively.

The results reveal that stakeholders view SRI ṣukūk, SIBs and CBs to be statistically significantly different from each other. This shows that stakeholders do not view SRI ṣukūk as “old wine in a new Sharīʿah-compliant bottle” but instead considered different from SIBs and CBs. Furthermore, stakeholders also differentiate between SIBs and CBs.

The paper provides empirical evidence that Islamic finance (IF) instrument, represented by SRI ṣukūk, is viewed as different instruments to conventional tools, represented by SIBs and CBs. First, it debunks the notion that IF is viewed as similar to its conventional counterpart. Second, SIBs are seen as different from CBs, illustrating the distinct categorisation of impact investing instruments. As such, third, the development of SRI ṣukūk and SIBs can provide diversification to portfolios as it is a unique instrument in the social finance and financial market.

This paper aims to examine the level of transparency of the electronic procurement (e-procurement) system in Malaysia.

Using the content analysis method, 23 transparency disclosure items from the Website Attribute Evaluation System (WAES) checklist were used to evaluate the transparency level of the e-procurement system. The data gathered from the WAES were analysed using frequency and percentage based on the various categories of transparency.

The study reveals that the e-procurement system disclosed 17 out of the 23 WAES transparency disclosure items, which represents a transparency disclosure level of 73.91%. Of the five categories of disclosure, i.e. ownership, contact information, organizational information, citizen consequences and freshness, the detailed results show that the items are fully disclosed for only two categories, and for three categories, i.e. ownership, contact information and organizational information, the items are not fully disclosed.

The findings of the present research offer a positive indication that the government is moving in the right direction, particularly in efforts to reduce the corruption level in procurement activities and to improve the accountability level of the government.

The present study is among the few studies that attempts to address a fundamental issue of transparency in the public procurement system that has an important relationship with the occurrence of corruption in procurement activities.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate factors affecting ethical work behaviour among Malaysian public sector auditors. Based on Hunt and Vitell model, there are four research objectives for this study: to investigate the influence of ethical climate on public sector auditors ethical work behaviour; to examine the effect of professional commitment on ethical work behaviour of public sector auditors; to investigate the effect of corporate ethical values (CEV) on ethical work behaviour of public sector auditors; and to examine the effect of ethical ideology on ethical work behaviour of public sector auditors.

The respondents of the study were public sector auditors of National Audit Department in Malaysia. Using a survey questionnaire comprising instruments about the ethical climate, CEV, professional commitment, ethical ideology and organisational misbehaviour, a total of 382 were received and usable. In achieving the research objectives, multiple regressions were performed.

The results reveal that ethical work behaviour among public sector auditors in Malaysia is influenced by law and independence ethical climate, professional commitment, CEV and both idealism and relativism ethical ideology.

The present study provides new additional empirical evidence on determinants of ethical work behaviour of auditors in public sector from a developing economy (i.e. Malaysia) which is currently limited.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the extent public listed construction firms in Malaysia disclose mandatory information on public private partnership (PPP) projects. This paper is important as the level of disclosure of PPP information reflects the extent of transparency as practiced by the companies involved in PPP projects.

In achieving the aim, a content analysis procedure was carried out to analyse the 2015 annual reports of the construction companies. Descriptive statistics including the mean score, frequency and percentage were employed to analyse the disclosure of the annual report.

The overall mean disclosure score of the sampled companies is 40 per cent, which connotes a low level of disclosure of mandatory information on PPP. The companies also tend to disclose more mandatory financial information than non-financial information.

This paper is one of the few studies that investigated the level of mandatory disclosure of PPP information, thus contributing to the scanty literature on PPP transparency not only in Malaysia but also internationally.