An Introduction to Management and Cost Accounting

proscribedside(a) journal of Trade, economic science and Finance, Vol. 1, No. 2, August, 2010 2010-023X Factors Influencing bodily process-Based be Success A interrogation manakin Zhang Yi Fei and Che Ruhana Isa turn more and more popular 3-7 first rudiment aims to provide accurate hail in physical composition to passenger vehicles to allocate act damages to produces and services by applying woo drivers 8.Academics who advocate first rudiment, much(prenominal)(prenominal) as, Cooper and Kaplan 9, and Swenson 10 argue that it provides more accurate bell info needed to make appropriate strategic finishs about product mix, sourcing, pricing, process improvement, and evaluation of tune process performance. These claims construct led many strongs to encompass first rudiment schemas 8. The benefits of first rudiment and its positive clash on potents performance motivated a numerous studies which dissectd various aspects of first principle.Among such(pren ominal) studies atomic number 18 McGowan 11 who assessed the integrity of first rudiment triumph, Innes and Mitchell 4, 12 and Yanren 13 who conducted explore on factors relateing first rudiment word sense, and Shield 3, Shields and McEwen 14, Gosselin 15 and Baired et al. 16, 17who abbreviated on factors influencing first principle advantage especially at the murder defend. However, there is mounting evidence that suggests most of firms atomic number 18 experiencing worrys in implementing first rudiment and, in some(a) extreme suit of clothess, rudiment effectuation is non prospered 3, which later resulted in abandoning the rudiment brasss altogether 15.Questions arise as to why first principle murder is achieverful in certain companies and fails in others. Based on the contingency guess, enquiryers absorb argued that the reasons for contrasting full points of first rudiment achiever could be due to the diverse contextual factors faced by each(prenom inal) firm. These pitch led searchers to recognize assessing factors that run first rudiment success implementation as an important seek bea.The following are among the enquiry that pack been carried out to examine factors that influence rudiment success Anderson 18 Shield 3 McGowan and Klammer 19 Krumwiede 20 and Anderson and new 21 This article has dickens principal(prenominal) verifiables the first objective is to identify research gaps stem turnd on the revision of forward research and the second objective is to propose theoretical research fabric for flow rate research.This article is unionized as follows Section II presents a discussion of selected articles related to factors influencing first rudiment implementation and gaps or limitations of preceding(prenominal) studies and suggestions for modern research are tell in the section III and IV. The framework for current research is provided in section V, Section VI defines each research variable and the la st-place section presents the conclusion. II. PREVIOUS RESEARCH In this section, selected alphabet implementation verifiable 144AbstractIn todays advanced manufacturing and combative environment, accurate embody information is crucial for all the kinds of businesses, such as manufacturing firms, merchandizing firms, and service firms. Argued to be superior to the handed-down volume-based be system, bodily function-Based cost system ( rudiment) has increasingly attracted the anxiety of practiti aners and researchers alike as adept of the strategic tools to aid managers for better conclusion making.The benefits of first rudiment system and its mends on companies performance have motivated numerous empirical studies on first principle system and it is considered as angiotensin converting enzyme of the most-researched anxiety write up areas in maturateed countries. Previous research on first rudiment have examined pertinent issues related to rudiment implementation suc h as the levels of first principle adoption in various countries, the reasons for implementing alphabet, the problems related to first principle and the detailed success factors influencing alphabet.This paper reviews the research on ABC carried out deep down the last decade, from 1995-2008, and from the review research gaps are identified. Specifically, this paper examines the selection of factors influencing successful ABC implementation, variables utilize by previous research and the definitions and operationalization of the variables. The review reveals that ancient research concentrated mainly on behavioral, organisational, and adept foul variables as the main determinants of ABC success but real micro research have been done to examine the roles of organisational acculturation and complex body part.Based on the research gaps identified, a research framework for approaching(a) research is provided. Index Terms advanced(a) Manufacturing Activity-Based Costing, ABC Success Environment, I. INTRODUCTION In todays competitive and continually changing business environment, firms need to be vigilant of the cushions of the wobbles in the business environment and devise appropriate strategies to survive and prosper. Advancements in manufacturing and colloquy technologies have drastically changed the ways businesses conduct their activities. sufferance of advanced manufacturing technologies such as robotics and computerized manufacturing have resulted in of import changes in the manufacturing cost expression which have led academics and practitioners to argue that the traditional cost regularitys are no yearner sufficient within this new manufacturing environment 1 (Johnson and Kaplan, 1987). This had resulted in the change from the traditional volume-based cost model to new cost modes such as Activity Based Costing (ABC) 2.Due to its ability in providing more accurate cost information and enhancing firms performance, ABC is foreign daybook of Trade, economics and Finance, Vol. 1, No. 2, August, 2010 2010-023X studies, which spanned 1995-2008 rate of flows, were unruffled from four prominent refereed history research journals, in care accountancy field ledger of anxiety accounting Research, history, Organizations and Society, management method of accounting Research and British Accounting check.Factors used by previous research to analyse the effect on ABC success implementation are summarized, and stagecoach of ABC implementation overly is outlined. A. Technical Variables Early studies of ABC adoption and implementation undertaken by previous researchers concentrated on technical foul factors, such as identification of main activities, selection of cost drivers, problem in accumulating cost entropy. Example of these research are Cooper 9, Morrow and Connelly 22.However, technical factors that whitethorn not be adequate to(predicate) to apologize the factors influencing ABC success implementation. Cooper et al. 23 argued that the key problem during ABC implementation stage is that companies only charge on technical factors. They suggested that to make ABC implementation more effective, non-technical factors such as involvement of non-accounting in ABC implementation process, coin out steering championship, adequate training program to employees about the objectives and benefits of ABC should be emphasizingd as easily.Similar opinions were expressed by Shield 3 and Shields and McEwen 14. Shield (1995) open no authoritative consanguinity amid technical factors and ABC success. Shields and McEwen 14 overly highlighted that sole emphasis on the architectural and software practice of ABC systems leads to the failure of ABC implementation. Therefore many researchers have suggested that new variables should be considered to investigate factors influencing ABC success. B.Contextual, Behavioral and Organizational Variables Recognizing the research gaps in identifying facto rs that may affect ABC success, academicians shifted their focuses from technical factors to other variables, such as contextual, behavioral and organisational, culture, as well as organisational structure. Anderson 18 conducted a longitudinal investigation of ABC process in General Motor (GM) from a period of 1986 to 1993. In his research, he examined the effect of organisational variables and contextual variables, and segmented ABC implementation into four major stages, initiation, adoption, adaptation and acceptance.He launch that organisational factors, such as concealment anxiety substantiate and training for the ABC system affect various stages of ABC importantly, while contextual variables, such as competition, relevance to managers finishs and compatibility with existing systems produced different spot of impact on different stages of ABC. Shield 3 examined the relationships between mixture of behavioral, organisational and technical factors and the success of AB C implementation.She employed Shield and juvenilitys 24 framework and summarized behavioral and organisational variables as top management support, adequate choices, training, inter-group communication ABC system to performance evaluation and fee, non-accounting ownership, intimacy ABC to competitive strategies as well as clarity of ABC objectives. She set up that top management support, gene linkage to quality initiatives and to personal performance measure (pay/appraisal), implementation of training and resource adequacy were the significant predictors in developing ABC success.She also strand that technical variables were not associated with ABC success. Shields generateings are supported by other researchers, such as Shield and McEwen 14, who argued that a significant pillow slip for unsuccessful implementations of ABC of several companies could be due to the emphasis of architectural and software aspiration of the ABC system and less attention habituated to beha vioral and organisational issues, which were identified by Shield 3. Krumwiede and Roth 25 also utter that barriers of ABC implementation can be overcome if firms could give brilliance to behavioral and rganizational variables identified by Shield 3. Similarly, Norris 26 agreed with Shields 3 findings that the friendship between ABC success and behavioral and organizational variables is stronger than with technical variables. She further highlighted that the impact of behavioral, organizational and technical should be focused at individual level. McGowan and Klammer 19 conducted a critique of 53 employees from 4 targeted sites in the U. S. o examine whether employees satisfaction levels are associated with ABC implementation by They also measured their perceptions of the factors associated with the degree of satisfaction, such as top management support the degree of involvement in the implementation process objectives clearly verbalize objectives shared training linkage to perf ormance evaluation system adequate resources information quality and preparer over user. Their results indicated that employees satisfaction with ABC implementation was positively related with clarity of objectives and quality of ABC information.Gosselin 15 carried out a plenty of 161 Canadian manufacturing companies to examine the effects of strategic posture and organizational structure on adoption and implementation of general forms of Activity-based be. He segmented the ABC implementation stage into adoption and implementation. The research findings set uped that a prospector strategy was associated with manager decision to adopt ABC, while centralization and formalization were significantly associated with ABC success implementation. Krumwiede 20 surveyed U.S manufacturing firms to field of force how contextual factors, such as the potential for cost distortion or size of firms organizational factors, such as top management support, training or non-accounting ownership, af fect each stage of ABC implementation process. His findings showed that the different factors affected the various stages of implementation of ABC and the degree of splendor of each factor varies according to the stage of implementation. Contextual factors, such as usefulness of cost information, IT existence, less throwate uncertainty and orotund organizations were related to ABC adoption.Moreover, organizational factors, such as top management support, non-accounting ownership, and implementation training affect ABC success implementation. 145 International Journal of Trade, Economics and Finance, Vol. 1, No. 2, August, 2010 2010-023X In another(prenominal) call for by Anderson and Young 21, the relationship between organizational and contextual variables, such as organizational structures, task characteristics, management support, information technology and ABC success was examined.The result confirmed the importance of organizational factors (top management support and adeq uacy resources) during the ABC implementation stage. In South Africa, Sartorius et al. 27 carried out a mail survey to investigate the effect of organizational factors such as top management, adequate resources, coherence with organizational goals and strategy on ABC success. They prepare top management support and resources were the crucial factors in explaining ABC success. In the UK, Innes and Mitchell 4 and 12 surveyed the consummation of ABC adoption among largest firms.The conceive aimed to find out factors influencing ABC success by using behavioral and organizational variables, and it was found that top management influenced ABC success significantly. In another training conducted by Khalid 28 using a questionnaire survey among the largest 100 firms in Saudi-Arabian Arabia, ABC adoption was found to be positively related to diversity of products. In Malaysia, Ruhanita et al. 29 conducted a mail survey and a case canvass to examine that factors influencing ABC success, e specially at adoption stage.They found the significant factors were cost distortion, decision usefulness, information technology and organizational factors. In addition, the findings showed that decision usefulness, top management support, link ABC to performance measure and compensation influenced the ABC success adoption significantly. A case select of one Chinese manufacturing firm was carried by Lana and Fei 30 in China. Their research aimed to examine some key success factors pertinent to ABC implementation within Chinese organizational and pagan setting.The research findings showed that top management support, hierarchical and communion structure and high proportion of dedicated professionals were the significant factors in find ABC success implementation. Majid et al. 7 used a case study advancement to describe the process of ABC implementation in a Malaysian service company and a Malaysian manufacturing company. In this research, they categorized ABC implementation into initiation and adoption, design, implementation and use of information.The purpose of the research was to find out the problems faced during ABC implementation, He found that the factors determining ABC success were top management support, suitable ABC software, and finally, ensuring that all affected employees understand and participate in the ABC implementation stage. And they also found that at different stages of ABC, the controlling factors influencing ABC success were also different. Colin et al. 31 take behavioral and organizational factors summarized by Shield (1995) to examine factors influencing the adoption and degree of success of ABC systems and determinants of that success.In their research, the targeted research population was manufacturing and service firms in the UK. They found that top management support, non-accounting ownership, adequate training provided to ABC determined the ABC success. Besides behavioral, organizational and technical variable, some researc hers also indicated that the dimensions of national cultures could affect the level of ABC success 32, 33. brewer 32 used Hofstedes taxonomy of work-related heathen values to examine the relationship between national culture and Activity-Based Costing system.In the study, Hofstede 34s work was applied to the case of Harris Semiconductor (HS), which has implemented ABC at plants in Malaysia and the USA. The results showed that the level of ABC success in Malaysia was high than that of U. S due to high-power-distance and collectivist cultures in Malaysia. In addition, Supitcha and Frederick 33 also include national cultures dimension into framework in a case study of one Thai state-owned enterprises budgeting system.They found that due to cultural differences, modifications were required when the organizations in Thailand tried to implement ABC system in Thai environment. Apart from national culture, corporate culture factors were also tested by prior research. Baird, Harrison and R eeve 17 conducted a study to investigate the relationship between the extent of ABC adoption and the organizational variables of size and decision usefulness of cost information and business unit culture. In their research, data were collected by a mail survey questionnaire and samples were promiscuously selected from business units in Australia.The research finding showed significant relationships between ABC adoption and decision usefulness, cultural dimensions of outcome orientation and puckish verse loose control. Baird, Harrison and Reeve 16 examined the relationship between success of activity management practices and organizational factors (top management support, training, link to performance evaluation and compensation, and link to quality initiatives), and organizational culture (outcome orientation, team orientation, attention to detail, as well as cosmos).They adopt a survey questionnaire method on randomly chosen business units in Australia. The findings showed tha t two organizational factors (top management support, link to quality initiatives) explained the variations in success of activity management practices, such as ABC, and outcome orientation and attention to detail of organizational culture were associated with ABC success. They also stress that compared with organizational culture, organizational factors had stronger associations with the ABC.Table 2. 1 presents a compendious of the previous research discussed in this section, which highlights the factors influencing ABC success and the research method adoptive by each research. TABLE 2. 1 A drumhead OF PREVIOUS RESEARCH RELATED TO ABC SUCCESS IMPLEMENTATION former Shield (1995) Method bailiwick Variable Behavioral, organizational, technical Individual, organizational factors, technical, task and so on Stage not decide all(a) the stages Anderson (1995) expression 146International Journal of Trade, Economics and Finance, Vol. 1, No. 2, August, 2010 2010-023X technical variable s Innes et al. (1995) Gosselin (1997) stick to Behavioral & organizational variables Structure & strategy word meaning implement ation Survey Adoption & Implemen tation Not specify Not specify Not specify Not specify All the stage Implemen tation Adapted from Lana and Fei 30 III. GAPS FROM PREVIOUS RESEARCH From the review of previous research, this section highlights the gaps from previous research.First, as highlighted by Lana and Fei (2007) a majority of ABC research still was done in developed countries and very little research has been done in developing country, especially in Asian context. Thus it is necessary to identify whether the Asian culture and way of doing business may have a different impact on the extent of ABC adoption and implementation. Second, a majority of ABC research reviewed adopted the behavioral and organizational variables identified by Shield 3 to investigate factors influencing ABC success. So far only one research. which was conducted by Gosselin 15 examinedthe effect of organizational structure on ABC success among Canadian business units. The importance of organizational structure effect on management accounting practices is stressed by many researchers. For example, Damanpour 35 stated that whether an innovation can be successfully adopted or implemented to some extent is determined by the quality of structure the a firm adopts, so the current study also depart consider organizational structure as one of the predictors of ABC success.Third, a few(prenominal) research have examined the effect of corporate culture on ABC success empirically. Hence it is necessary to examine the association between ABC success and corporate culture, as well as how important cultural factors might be relative to organizational, non-cultural factors 16. Forth, very few studies have investigated the effect of national cultural on ABC and so far, only two researchers, namely, Brewer 32 and Supitcha and Frederick 33, have included this variable i n their studies.Supitcha and Frederick 33 argued that national culture differences often require successful accounting practices in one country to be modified for effective use in another country. So the influence of national culture should not be ignored 32), especially in developing countries, and differences in term of perceived ABC success could be explained by national culture. The next research gap is that some previous research did not specify the ABC implementation stage for example, Shield 3 and Brewer 32.According to Krumwiede and Roth 25, ABC implementation has sextet different stages. They are initiation, Adoption, Adaption, Acceptance, Routinization, Infusion, the final two stages are considered as hop on stage 25) and it is argued that at different stage, the dominant factors that determine ABC success implementation are also different. In order to investigate the factors influencing ABC success more accurately, the current research impart concentrate on one finica l stage of ABC implementation that is mature stage.Finally, the selected articles show most of ABC implementation research were conducted using quantitative method such as questionnaire survey, and there are very few research used qualitative method (see Table 2. 1). According 147 Norris (1997) McGowan & Klammer (1997) Foster & Klammer (1997) Brewer (1998) Krumwiede (1998) Anderson & Young (1999) Case Survey Behavioral & Organizational Behavioral & organizational Non Survey Case Survey topic culture Contextual & organizational Organizational & contextual variables Interview &survey Supitcha et al (2001) Case National cultureNot specify Innes et al. (2000) Sartorius et. al (2000) Cotton et. al (2003) Khalid (2003) Baird et. al (2004) Ruhanita et al. (2006) Lana & Fei (2007) Survey Behavioral & organizational variables Organizational variables Behavioral & organizational variables Size, production, overhead Size, decision usefulness of cost information, culture Cost distortion, decis ion usefulness, IT, organizational Technical, behavioral, organizational, contextual factors Organizational factors, culture Organizational, technical factors Behavioral & organizational Behavioral, organizational &Adoption Survey Survey Not specify Adoption Survey Survey Adoption Adoption Survey & Case Case Adoption All the stage Baird et al. (2007) Sartorius et al. (2007) Colin et al. (2008) Majid et al. (2008) Survey Survey Survey Case Implemen tation Adoption Implemen tation Adoption & International Journal of Trade, Economics and Finance, Vol. 1, No. 2, August, 2010 2010-023X to Cavana et al. 36, questionnaire survey of data collection often encounters problems of low response rate and to counter this problem researchers are encouraged to use multiple methods to collect data. IV.PROPOSED FRAMEWORK FOR future day RESEARCH As very few empirical research have been done in developing countries on ABC adoption and implementation, future research should be conducted in developing na tions, especially, in Asian countries such as China. Since China is one of the fastest growing economies in the world, it would be interesting to know if ABC success is affected by akin factors as in the western countries. Furthermore, since joining the WTO in the year of 2001, Chinese enterprises started adopting western management accounting techniques, thus it is necessary to know the impact of Chinese culture on the ABC success.Hence the current study will focus on ABC success among Chinese manufacturing companies. Krumwiede and Roth 25 classified ABC implementation into different stages initiation, adoption, adaption, acceptance, routinization, and infusion. It has been suggested in the literature that the dominant factors that determine ABC success implementation are also different at different stages 20. A review of the literature shows that more research has been done to examine the determinant factors at the adoption and very few studies on implementation stage.Thus the c urrent research will concentrate on one particular stage of ABC implementation, especially, the mature stage (Routinization, Infusion). The current research will also examine the effect of structure on ABC success. It has been argued that in order to examine the effect of structure, the sample should come from only one industry. Gosselin 15 argued that different industries have different level of centralization, and formalization, and he suggested that a study should concentrate on one particular industry.Similarly, Rotch 37 stated that compared with manufacturing firms, non-manufacturing firms are very different in terms of characteristics. For instance, hotels are different from manufacturing firms and output of non-manufacturing firms are extremely hard to determine. Moreover, activities in non-manufacturers, especially in service empyreans are hard to be predicted, and also large proportion of total cost are joint costs, which often difficult to assign to output. Similarly, Cla rke, Hill and Stevens 38 highlighted that significant differences exist in terms of cost structure between manufacturers and non-manufacturers.In non-manufacturing sector, range labor and direct material cost are almost sufficient to zero, and placed overhead costs are the dominant costs in the cost structure and this difference makes researching ABC application in this type of industry more problematic. Hence the current study will focus on manufacturing industry only and since ABC is more likely to be implemented by larger firms 28, this research will also concentrate on large sized manufacturing business. As discussed in the earlier section, previous research has not systematically examined the effects of organizational structure and organizational culture on ABC success.This motivates the current research to investigate the effects of these variables on ABC success. V. RESEARCH FRAMEWORK A. Proposed theory The current research will adopt Contingency theory and organizational theory to develop the research framework. Contingency theory has been widely adopted to conduct research in management accounting field 39-41. Contingency theory asserts that the design and application of control systems are contingent on the environment of the organizational setting in which these controls operate and function 39.It is widely used to explain the characteristics of management accounting system 42. Waterhouse and Tiessen 43 stated that the design and structure of management control system is contingent on number of factors there are product diversity, cost structure, size, level of competition and degree of customization 44, 45. Sartorius, Eitzen and Kamala 45 illustrated an example to explain the relationship between ABC and the contingency factors. They stated that increasing fixed costs leads to a need for more accurate cost assignation technique such as ABC.This is especially true for firms which produce more than one products as different product products use d ifferential amounts of resources 17. rival is another contextual factor that leads to the emergence of more sophisticated be system such as ABC. In addition, large sized firms are more likely to adopt ABC than smaller firms due to the size of overhead, number of activities needs to be coordinated, as well as particular(a) resources16, 45. However, adoption and implementation of an innovation are totally different41.Hence, Contingency theory alone may not be adequate to explain ABC implementation stage. Krumwiede 20 concluded from a survey among US firms that contextual factors may influence the ABC adoption stage while implementation stage is more associated with organizational factors. He also suggested that once a firm arrives at ABC implementation stage, it should pay attention to organizational factors. Hence, another theory should be applied to explain ABC implementation stage, which is organizational change theory 29.According to organizational change theory, changes in org anizations could be classified into four categories technology, products, structure, and culture 29. Gosselin 15 categorized ABC implementation stage as the administrative procedure. Therefore, ABC could be considered as a structural change and its success is determined by top-down approach. Based on organizational change theory, Cooper and Zmud 46 divide IT innovation into six sequence stages 1) initiation, 2) adoption, 3) adaptation, 4) acceptance, 5) routinization, as well as 6) infusion.They also stated that at various stages the dominant factors in determining IT innovation are also different. B. Research Framework In view of the discussion in the previous sections, the following framework is proposed, depicted by Figure 1, for this research. Prior research test the relationship between ABC success and behavioral, organizational variables, hence 148 International Journal of Trade, Economics and Finance, Vol. 1, No. 2, August, 2010 2010-023X the current research will also base o n Shield 3s model to examine the impact of behavioral, organizational variables on ABC success.In addition, it also will include two supererogatory variables, organizational culture and structure as Gosselin 15 stated that effect of organizational culture and structure on ABC success should not be ignored. also will adopt those dimensions. As for ABC success, the current study will adopt McGowan s 11 definition. McGowan 11 used four perspectives to measure Activity-Based Costing Management, namely users attitude, technical characteristics rating, perceived usefulness in improving suppose performance and impact on organizational process. This measure subsequently adopted by Byrne et al. 49 to test ABC success implementation in Australian context. In their research, they stressed that McGowans 11definition provides the most robust measure, hence the current study will also apply McGowans 11 definition as the indicators as ABC success. REFERENCE 1 2 3 4 5 Johnson, H. T. and R. S. Kap lan, Relevance Lost The rise and fall of management accounting 1987 Harvard craft School Press Kennedy, T. and J. Affleck-Graves, The impact of activity-based be techniques on firm performance. Journal of Management Accounting Research, 2001. 13 p. 19-45.Shield, An empirical analysis of firms implementation experiences with activity-based be Management Accounting Research 1995. 7 p. 148-166. Innes, J. and F. 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Fig 1 Theoretical Research Framework Seven behavioral and organizational variables are important to cost management practices identified by Shield and Young 24. They are 1) Top management support 2) linkage to competitive strategies, 3) performance evaluation and compensation, 4) non-accounting ownership, 5) sufficient resources, 6) training in designing, implementing and using cost management system and 7) consensus about the clarity of the objectives of the cost management system, so current study will use all this indicators as behavioral and organizational variables.Lana and Fei 30 reviewed past empirical research about factors influencing ABC success and summarized the technical used by prior research, they are software packages, gathering data on cost drivers, identifying activities, knowledge of data requirement and data collection, the intimacy of external consultants. The current study also employed Lana and Pan 30s definition and its measurement for technical variables. 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Australian Accountant, 1998. 68(2) p. 46-49. 49 Byrne, S. , E. Stower, and P.Torry. Activity based costing implementation success in Australia. 2008 cited 2008 twenty-sixth August Available from http//eprints. usq. edu. au/3719/1/Byrne_Stower_Torry. pdf. First root Mr. Zhang Yi Fei was born on Sept 9th, 1978. He obtained his bachelor degree in Accounting from Sichuan mean(prenominal) University, Cheng Du City, Si Chuan province, China in the year of 2002. He obtained his Masters in Business Administration specializing in Accounting in 2005 from University Malaysia Sabah. Currently he is pursuing his PhD degree in Management Accounting at University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.Second Author Che Ruhana ISA (PhD) is currently an associate professor in accounting at the capability of Business and Accountancy, University of Malaya (UM). She joined UM as a tutor in 1987 later obtaining the BBA (Accounting) from Oklahoma State University, USA. In 1990, she graduated from London School of Economics and Political Science with the degree MSc in Accounting and Finance. She obtained her PhD in Accounting from University Putra Malaysia in 2005. Her current research interests are management accounting change, management accounting and performance measurement systems in public sector organiza tions. 150