Public service innovations, policy transfer and governance in the Asia-Pacific region: The Malaysian experience

Since the advent of New Public Management, public service innovations and policy transfers have become increasingly popular around the world as a strategy for improving governance and scaling up service quality. The Malaysian government has also shown considerable interests in policy learning and consequently introduced important innovations and reforms akin to those introduced in other contexts. This paper provides an account of major innovations and changes that the Malaysian public service has witnessed since the early 1980s and comments on their impact. Although public service innovations and reforms have been quite comprehensive and generally, viewed favourably, they have so far produced positive but yet limited impact. Despite gains in several areas as a result of innovations and changes public governance, Malaysia continues to suffer from a number of problems and challenges including high incidence of corruption, inefficiency, procedural complications/delays in service provision and lack of professionalism.