Challenges Faced by Management Accountants in the 21st Century

Management accountant in the twentieth centuries is no longer a traditional ‘bean counting’, but now has to become a ‘hybrid accountant’ within an organization. They are now facing intense challenges and are expected to adapt with rapid changes in business environment. Companies demand for more proactive management accountants, who are now expecting to become part of management and ready to accept exciting challenges ahead. This paper discusses issues on environmental and organizational factors, which are believed to be the major contributor to the key challenges faced by management accountant nowadays. A conceptual framework was developed which forms the relationship between management accountants’ roles, tasks and factors driving to the changes that leads to challenges faced by management accountants in the 21st century.