Community associations in Malaysian housing: Institutions and governance structure

In order to study the institutions and governances structure from community association perspective in Malaysian housing, this article examines major component and institutional framework on housing management in general. Housing is sustainable if everyone has the opportunity to improve their living conditions through housing management institutions. Private community associations was one of the new inst tutional arrangements in the Malaysian housing sector which used to be governed either by the urban community or by the rural community itself. Based upon the perspective of the New Institutional Economics (NIE), institutions are the "rules of the game", consisting of the formal legal rules, informal social norms and enforcement characteristics that govern individual behaviour and structure social interactions. Using relevant article and document review from previous studies, this article explores an important aspect of housing management and community association which have not been a subject matter examined under the NIF. perspective in Malaysia. The article begins by understanding the relations between housing management and community associations, their major functions and then highlights the community institutions in Malaysia. At the sccond part, it moves to the NIE perspective on housing management, related performance indicators and underlying incentives and constraints of the specific circumstances. The final section recommends a research framework on comparison between two community associations in Malaysia for further works.