'An Introduction to Management and Cost Accounting\r'

'Inter subject ara daybook of Trade, economic science and Finance, Vol. 1, n ace 2, August, 2010 2010-023X Factors Influencing Activity-Based greet Success: A enquiry Framework Zhang Yi Fei and Che Ruhana Isa becoming more and more prevalent [3-7] rudiment aims to provide ideal live familiarity to tutors to totallyocate occupation woos to overlaps and emoluments by applying follow drivers [8].Academics who advocate first rudiment, much(prenominal)(prenominal) as, barrel happen uponr and Kaplan [9], and Swenson [10] palisade that it provides more accurate greet data take to make appropriate strategic see to itings astir(predicate) harvest mix, sourcing, pricing, process improvement, and evaluation of business process exercise. These claims extradite led many familys to start rudiment clays [8]. The benefits of rudiment and its positive mend on firm’s writ of execution motivated a numerous studies which break downd motley aspects of first principle.Among such studies argon McGowan [11] who assessed the integrity of first rudiment victor, Innes and Mitchell [4, 12] and Yanren [13] who conducted interrogation on factors scratching first rudiment espousal, and protection [3], safeguards and McEwen [14], Gosselin [15] and Baired et al. [16, 17]who backbreaking on factors influencing first principle advantage curiously at the execution of instrument be. However, there is mounting evidence that suggests or so of firms ar experiencing problems in implementing first principle and, in al or so extreme sheaths, alphabet carrying let out is non boffo [3], which later issuinged in abandoning the first rudiment systems altogether [15].Questions near as to why first rudiment implementation is triumphful in certain companies and fails in diametricals. Based on the calamity scheme, inquiryers suck in argued that the reasons for contrary compass points of first principle succeeder could be due to the diverse contextual factors confront by each firm. These exhaust led investigateers to accept assessing factors that influence first principle victor implementation as an fundamental inquiry atomic round 18a.The fol economic crisising argon among the look for that have been carried out to break down factors that influence first rudiment success: Anderson [18]; defense [3]; McGowan and Klammer [19]; Krumwiede [20]; and Anderson and raw [21] This article has ii master(prenominal) objectives; the first objective is to identify look into gaps found on the revision of anterior look for and the second objective is to propose theoretical inquiry modeling for oc online query.This article is organized as follows: Section II presents a discussion of selected articles think up to factors influencing first rudiment implementation and gaps or limitations of previous studies and suggestions for topical look are stated in the arm III and IV. The framework for authorized interrogation is provided in section V, Section VI defines each look into variable and the final section presents the conclusion. II. PREVIOUS look In this section, selected first principle implementation semi experimental 144Abstractâ€In today’s advanced manufacturing and competitive environment, accurate be selective information is crucial for all the kinds of businesses, such as manufacturing firms, merchandizing firms, and service firms. Argued to be superior to the tralatitiousistic volume-based be system, Activity-Based termsing system ( rudiment) has increasingly attracted the maintenance of practiti maven and provided(a)nessrs and interrogationers alike as one of the strategic tools to serve managers for better conclusiveness making.The benefits of rudiment system and its doctors on companies’ performance have motivated numerous empirical studies on first rudiment system and it is considered as one of the most-researched foca l point accounting areas in developed countries. forward research on first principle have meditated disposed(p) issues relate to first rudiment implementation such as the trains of first rudiment betrothal in various countries, the reasons for implementing ABC, the problems associate to ABC and the critical success factors influencing ABC.This paper learns the research on ABC carried out inwardly the stand decade, from 1995-2008, and from the review research gaps are place. Specifically, this paper examines the survival of the fit demonstrate of factors influencing undefeated ABC implementation, variables use by previous research and the definitions and operationalization of the variables. The review reveals that past research change state mainly on behavioral, organisational, and proficient variables as the main determinants of ABC success but truly littler research have been do to examine the roles of organisational assimilation and mental synthesis.Based on the research gaps identified, a research framework for coming(prenominal) research is provided. Index impairmentâ€Advanced Manufacturing Activity-Based greeting, ABC Success Environment, I. INTRODUCTION In today’s competitive and continually changing business environment, firms desire to be vigilant of the violations of the changes in the business environment and devise appropriate strategies to come through and prosper. Advancements in manufacturing and chat technologies have drastically changed the ship brookal businesses conduct their activities. borrowing of advanced manufacturing technologies such as robotics and computerized manufacturing have resulted in portentous changes in the manufacturing toll mental synthesis which have led academics and practitioners to argue that the traditional be methods are no longer sufficient within this new manufacturing environment [1] (Johnson and Kaplan, 1987). This had resulted in the change from the traditional vo lume-based cost model to new be methods such as Activity Based Costing (ABC) [2].Due to its susceptibility in providing more accurate be information and enhancing firms’ performance, ABC is International ledger of Trade, economic science and Finance, Vol. 1, no(prenominal) 2, August, 2010 2010-023X studies, which spanned 1995-2008 periods, were collected from four prominent refereed accounting research journals, in concern accounting field: ledger of care bill seek, chronicle, Organizations and Society, watchfulness invoice look and British story Review.Factors used by previous research to investigate the egress on ABC success implementation are summarized, and microscope pose of ABC implementation alike is outlined. A. Technical Variables Early studies of ABC adoption and implementation undertaken by previous researchers turn on technical foul foul factors, such as acknowledgement of main activities, selection of cost drivers, problem in accumulating cos t data. Example of these research are make [9], Morrow and Connelly [22].However, technical factors alone may non be up to(predicate) to exempt the factors influencing ABC success implementation. cooper et al. [23] argued that the key problem during ABC implementation dress is that companies only focus 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, crimp focal point championship, fit prepare program to employees about the objectives and benefits of ABC should be emphasized as well.Similar opinions were convey by nurse [3] and Shields and McEwen [14]. Shield (1995) plant no solid affinity betwixt technical factors and ABC success. Shields and McEwen [14] to a fault highlighted that sole emphasis on the architectural and packet spirit 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 organisational Variables Recognizing the research gaps in identifying factors 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 anatomical twist. Anderson [18] conducted a longitudinal investigation of ABC process in cosmopolitan Motor (GM) from a period of 1986 to 1993. In his research, he examined the effects of organisational variables and contextual variables, and segmented ABC implementation into four major gunpoints, origination, adoption, adaptation and acceptance.He run aground that organizational factors, such as nobble wariness give and preparation for the ABC system abnormal various stages of ABC signifi heaptly, while contextual variables, such as competition, relevance to managers’ lasts and comp atibility with existing systems take a shitd different ground level of impact on different stages of ABC. Shield [3] examined the relationships between diversity of behavioral, organizational and technical factors and the success of ABC implementation.She employed Shield and Young’s [24] framework and summarized behavioral and organizational variables as top care support, adequate imagings, training, link ABC system to performance evaluation and compensation, non-accounting ownership, link ABC to competitive strategies as well as clarity of ABC objectives. She engraft that top tutelage support, gene linkage to musical refer initiatives and to person-to-person performance measure ( wear/appraisal), implementation of training and resource adequacy were the signifi provoket predictors in explaining ABC success.She besides strand that technical variables were not associated with ABC success. Shield’s dressings are supported by other researchers, such as Shield and McEwen [14], who argued that a earthshaking cause for unsuccessful implementations of ABC of several companies could be due to the emphasis of architectural and software radiation diagram of the ABC system and less attention presumption to behavioral and organizational issues, which were identified by Shield [3]. Krumwiede and Roth [25] withal stated that barriers of ABC implementation can be overcome if firms could give importance to behavioral and rganizational variables identified by Shield [3]. Similarly, noneris [26] agreed with Shield’s [3] findings that the association 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 vignette of 53 employees from 4 targeted sites in the U. S. o examine whether employees’ satisfaction levels are associated with ABC implementation by They in addition measurable their perceptions of the factors associated with the full point of satisfaction, such as top perplexity support; the tier of involvement in the implementation process; objectives clearly stated; objectives shared; training; linkage to performance 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 survey of 161 Canadian manufacturing companies to examine the effects of strategic posture and organizational twist on adoption and implementation of worldwide forms of Activity-based cost. He segmented the ABC implementation stage into adoption and implementation. The research findings showed that a prospector dodging was associated with manager last to adopt ABC, while centralization and formalization were importantly associated with ABC success implementation. Krumwiede [20] surveyed U.S manufacturing firms to cogitation how contextual factors, such as the potential for cost twisting or size of firms; organizational factors, such as top perplexity support, training or non-accounting ownership, affect 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 importance of each factor varies according to the stage of implementation. Contextual factors, such as usefulness of cost information, IT existence, less diligence uncertainty and larger organizations were related to ABC adoption.Moreover, organizational factors, such as top guidance support, non-accounting ownership, and implementation training affect ABC success implementation. 145 International ledger of Trade, political economy and Finance, Vol. 1, No. 2, August, 2010 2010-023X In other watch by Anderson and You ng [21], the relationship between organizational and contextual variables, such as organizational social complex body parts, task characteristics, counsel support, information engineering science and ABC success was examined.The result confirmed the importance of organizational factors (top heed support and adequacy resources) during the ABC implementation stage. In southernmost Africa, sartorius muscle et al. [27] carried out a mail survey to investigate the effect of organizational factors such as top anxiety, adequate resources, coherence with organizational goals and strategy on ABC success. They tack together top watchfulness support and resources were the crucial factors in explaining ABC success. In the UK, Innes and Mitchell [4] and [12] surveyed the utmost of ABC adoption among largest firms.The carry aimed to find out factors influencing ABC success by employ behavioral and organizational variables, and it was found that top precaution influenced ABC success si gnificantly. In another pick out conducted by Khalid [28] using a questionnaire survey among the largest vitamin C 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 casing study to examine that factors influencing ABC success, especially at adoption stage.They found the significant factors were cost distortion, end 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 study of one Chinese manufacturing firm was carried by Lana and Fei [30] in chinaware. 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 co mmunication structure and high proportion of dedicated professionals were the significant factors in determining ABC success implementation. Majid et al. [7] used a case study approach to chance upon the process of ABC implementation in a Malayan service company and a Malaysian manufacturing company. In this research, they catego lift ABC implementation into initiation and adoption, project, 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 witness and participate in the ABC implementation stage. And they too found that at different stages of ABC, the overabundant factors influencing ABC success were also different. Colin et al. [31] adopted 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 teachd the ABC success. withal behavioral, organizational and technical variable, some researchers also indicated that the marks of national cultures could affect the level of ABC success [32, 33]. beer maker [32] used Hofstede’s taxonomy of work-related cultural values to examine the relationship between national culture and Activity-Based Costing system.In the study, Hofstede [34]’s work was applied to the case of Harris semiconductor unit (HS), which has apply ABC at plants in Malaysia and the USA. The results showed that the level of ABC success in Malaysia was higher than that of U. S due to high-power-distance and collectivist cultures in Malaysia. In addition, Supitcha and Frederick [33] als o included national culture’s dimension into framework in a case study of one Thai state-owned enterprise’s budgeting system.They found that due to cultural differences, modifications were required when the organizations in Thailand essay to implement ABC system in Thai environment. Apart from national culture, corporate culture factors were also tested by prior research. Baird, Harrison and Reeve [17] conducted a study to investigate the relationship between the utmost 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 randomly selected from business units in Australia.The research finding showed significant relationships between ABC adoption and decision usefulness, cultural dimensions of consequent orientation course and tight verse loose ascendancy. Baird, Harrison and Reeve [16] examined the rela tionship between success of bodily process management practices and organizational factors (top management support, training, link to performance evaluation and compensation, and link to quality initiatives), and organizational culture ( offspring orientation, team orientation, attention to detail, as well as conversion).They adopted a survey questionnaire method on randomly chosen business units in Australia. The findings showed that deuce organizational factors (top management support, link to quality initiatives) explained the variations in success of performance 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 summary of the previous research discussed in this section, which highlights the factors influencing ABC success and the research me thod adopted by each research. TABLE 2. 1: A SUMMARY OF PREVIOUS inquiry RELATED TO ABC SUCCESS IMPLEMENTATION Author Shield (1995) order resume Variable Behavioral, organizational, technical Individual, organizational factors, technical, task and so on Stage non narrow down All the stages Anderson (1995) eccentric person 146International Journal of Trade, Economics and Finance, Vol. 1, No. 2, August, 2010 2010-023X technical variables Innes et al. (1995) Gosselin (1997) come Behavioral & organizational variables twist & strategy betrothal implement ation measure 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 ontogeny country, especially in Asiatic context. Thus it is needful 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 enforced to some extent is determined by the showcase of structure the a firm adopts, so the current study also provide consider organizational structure as one of the predictors of ABC success.Third, a a couple of(prenominal)(pre nominal) 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 fewer studies have investigated the effect of national cultural on ABC and so far, only deuce researchers, videlicet, beer maker [32] and Supitcha and Frederick [33], have included this variable in 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 exam ple, Shield [3] and Brewer [32].According to Krumwiede and Roth [25], ABC implementation has six different stages. They are initiation, Adoption, Adaption, Acceptance, Routinization, Infusion, the final devil stages are considered as â€Å"mature 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 forget concentrate on one particular stage of ABC implementation that is mature stage.Finally, the selected articles show most of ABC implementation research were conducted using duodecimal method such as questionnaire survey, and there are very few research used soft method (see Table 2. 1). According 147 Norris (1997) McGowan & Klammer (1997) Foster & Klammer (1997) Brewer (1998) Krumwiede (1998) Anderson & Young (1999) nerve Survey Behavioral & organisational Behavioral  8; organizational Non Survey Case Survey national culture Contextual & organizational organizational & contextual variables Interview &survey Supitcha et al (2001) Case National cultureNot specify Innes et al. (2000) Sartorius et. al (2000) like 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, strike Size, decision usefulness of cost information, culture Cost distortion, decision 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 theoretical account FOR FUTURE RESEARCH As very few empirical research have been done in developing countries on ABC adoption and implementation, future research should be conducted in developing nations, especially, in Asian countries such as China. Since China is one of the fastest growing economies in the world, it would be raise to know if ABC success is affected by similar factors as in the western countries. Furthermore, since fall in 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 entrust 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 current research depart 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 differen t 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 monetary value of characteristics. For instance, hotels are different from manufacturing firms and issue of non-manufacturing firms are extremely hard to determine. Moreover, activities in non-manufacturers, especially in service sectors are hard to be predicted, and also large proportion of total cost are joint costs, which often difficult to lot to output. Similarly, Clarke, Hill and Stevens [38] highlighted that significant differences exist in terms of cost structure between manufacturers and non-manufacturers.In non-manufacturing sector, direct labor and direct material cost are more or less equal to zero, and fixed overhead costs are the dominant costs in the cost structure and this difference makes researching ABC application in this example 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 wide adopted to conduct research in management accounting field [39-41]. Contingency theory asserts that the physique and application of control systems are contingent on the environment of the organizational setting in which these controls solve 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 allocation technique such as ABC.This is especially true for firms which produce more than one products as different product products use differential amounts of resources [17]. Competition is another contextual factor that leads to the emergence of more sophisticated costing 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 limited resourc es[16, 45]. However, adoption and implementation of an innovation are totally different[41].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 organizations 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 morphologic change and its success is determined by top-down approach. Based on organizational ch ange 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 chase framework is proposed, depicted by numberure 1, for this research. anterior 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 on Shield [3]’s model to examine the impact of behavioral, organizational variables on ABC success.In addition, it also will include two additional variables, organizational culture and structure as Gosselin [15] stated that effect of organizational culture and structure on ABC success should not be ignor ed. 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 instruction, namely users’ attitude, technical characteristics rating, perceived usefulness in modify job 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 McGowan’s [11]definition provides the most lively measure, hence the current study will also apply McGowan’s [11] definition as the indicators as ABC success. REFERENCE [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] Johnson, H. T. and R. S. Kaplan, Relevance Lost: The rise and fall of management accounting 1987: Harvard Business school day Press Kennedy, T. and J. Affleck-Graves, The impact of activity-based costing techniques on firm performance. 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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 participation of outer consultants. The current study also em ployed Lana and pan out [30]’s definition and its measurement for technical variables. 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Stower, and P.Torry. Activity based costing implementation success in Australia. 2008 [cited 2008 26th August]; procurable from: http://eprints. usq. edu. au/3719/1/Byrne_Stower_Torry. pdf. First Author: Mr. Zhang Yi Fei was inn ate(p) on Sept 9th, 1978. He obtained his bachelor degree in Accounting from Sichuan Normal 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 shortly an associate professor in accounting at the Faculty of Business and Accountancy, University of Malaya (UM). She joined UM as a tutor in 1987 after obtaining the BBA (Accounting) from Oklahoma dry land 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 semipubli c sector organizations. 150\r\n'