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Malaysia has moved towards global competitiveness. As an important contributor to the Malaysian economy, this change makes manufacturing companies in Malaysia need to ensure that their business operation and management cope with the current changes. To do this they need to reconsider their existing management accounting practices more than ever. Therefore, this study is carried out to determine how changes in management accounting practices in Malaysian manufacturing companies took place in response to a changing business environment and the effect of changes on performance.

A structured questionnaire survey is used to collect the data from various manufacturing companies in Malaysia. The Federation of Malaysian Manufacturer Directory is used as a sampling frame.

The results show that the level of changes in management accounting practices increased over the five year period from 2003 to 2007. The changes mostly occurred through the introduction of new practices, replacement of existing practices and modification of the way existing practices were used. Findings in this study also reveal that there are no significant differences in management accounting practices among local and foreign companies, or between small and medium, and large companies. This study also support previous research in terms of the positive relationship between changes in management accounting practices and performance.

Taken together this research outcome has contributed to the existing management accounting change literature especially in a developing economy setting.

This study aims to examine how the relationship among competitive environment, manufacturing technology and organisational strategy affect organisational performance.

Using a contingency approach, this study investigates the changes in competitive environment, manufacturing technology and organisational strategy in small and medium Malaysian manufacturing companies. The data is collected using a mailed questionnaire survey of manufacturing companies in the Klang Valley.

Results of the study show that the majority of responding companies have recognised changes in their competitive business environment and advanced manufacturing technology, which have impacted on organisational strategic behaviour. Structural equation modelling shows positive relationships among competitive environment, manufacturing technology and organisational strategy, with a positive impact on performance.

These outcomes provide useful insights into our knowledge of how organisational change has taken place in small and medium companies.

The study provides useful guidelines to small and medium sized companies facing changes to their business environment.

The study makes an incremental contribution to the existing organisational change literature for SMEs in developing countries.