Cultivating Public Value and Accountability Beyond NPM: A Non-Western Perspective

This paper reveals the limitations of New Public Management (NPM) and introduces an alternative model for creating and sustaining public value through grassroots engagement in a non-Western context. Focusing on a river-care education project in Malaysia, it demonstrates how community-led initiatives, targeting public values like clean water (SDG 6) and partnerships for goals (SDG 17), interact with local management practices to foster sustainable outcomes. Drawing on Bozeman's public value theory and Dewey's public interest approach, we present a multi-layered framework incorporating political–ideological, institutional, techno-managerial, and individual layers. This model emphasizes culturally responsive, localized practices and reveals that NPM's market-driven focus does not fully address societal goals like equity, sustainability, and social justice. Through a qualitative case study approach and by proposing an adaptive, context-sensitive approach, this study contributes to public sector accounting and management research, providing a pathway to public value creation aligned with Sustainable Development Goals in diverse, non-Western settings.