The purpose of this paper is to identify the challenges faced by local government in Indonesia when adopting a public asset management framework.
A case study within the South Sulawesi provincial government was used as the approach to achieve the research objective. The case study involved two data collection techniques – interviews and document analysis.
The result of the study indicates there are significant challenges that the Indonesian local government need to manage when adopting a public asset management framework. Those challenges are: the absence of an institutional and legal framework to support the asset management application; the non‐profit principle of public assets; multiple jurisdictions involved in the public asset management processes; the complexity of local government objectives; the non‐availability of data for managing public property; and limited human resources.
This research is limited to one case study. It is a preliminary study from larger research that uses multiple case studies. The main research also investigates opportunities for local government by adopting and implementing public asset management.
The paper's findings provide useful input for the policy makers, academics and asset management practitioners in Indonesia to establish a public asset management framework resulting in efficient and effective organizations, as well as an increase of public services quality. This study has a potential application in other developing countries.
