Purpose -The purpose of this paper is to study two objectives. First, it intends to scrutinize the challenges in implementing Public Private Partnership (PPP) by examining the factors that hinder the successful adoption of PPP in Malaysia. Second, it aims to investigate the differences in the perceptions of the government and the private sector pertaining to the hindrance factors. Design/methodology/approach -A questionnaire survey was used to elicit the perceptions of the public and private sectors concerning the constraints of PPP implementation in Malaysia. A total of 122 usable responses were obtained, which were analysed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences software. The mean score and mean score ranking were used to examine the importance of the hindrance factors based on the overall responses as well as on the respective responses of the public and the private sectors. An independent sample t-test was used to examine the differences in the perceptions between the two sectors. Findings -The overall results show that "lengthy delays in negotiation", "lack of government guidelines and procedures on PPP", "higher charge to direct users", "lengthy delays because of political debate" and "confusion over government objectives and evaluation criteria" are the top five constraints for adopting PPP in Malaysia. In terms of the differences in the perceptions between the public and private sector groups, the statistical test results indicate that there are only significant differences in the perceptions for two hindrance factors. Originality/value -The paper contributes to the existing literature on PPP, which is currently limited, by focusing on the challenges of implementing PPP in a developing country (i.e. Malaysia). More importantly, this paper provides evidence concerning the differences in the opinion of two key players (i.e. the government and the private sector) on the PPP hindrance factors.

Purpose – This paper aims to, first, examine the rationale for implementation of public private partnerships (PPP) in Malaysia. Second, it investigates the differences among perceptions of the public and private sectors, in relation to the rationales for implementing PPP in Malaysia. Design/methodology/approach – A questionnaire survey captured the perceptions of the public and private sectors concerning the rationales for PPP implementation in Malaysia. Of 250 questionnaires distributed, 122 usable responses were obtained and analysed using SPSS to rank the importance of the rationales and to examine differences in perceptions between the government and private sectors. Findings – Results show that “to enhance private sector involvement in economic development” is the only rationale that was rated as most important by all respondents. While other rationales were perceived as important, “to reduce the role of the Government in providing public services and facilities” was regarded as the least important rationale by both parties. The results also reveal significant differences between public and private perceptions for the least important rationales. Originality/value – This paper offers empirical evidence on the concept and the rationales for implementing PPP in Malaysia, and also provides evidence on the differences in the perceptions of the public and private sectors in relation to these rationales.