Meanwhile, in early 2003, AMARC was invited by Professor Akira Nishimura, from Kyushu University in Japan to participate in an international management accounting research which was sponsored by the Japanese Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS). Upon completion of our project, I was sponsored by JSPS to undertake another research project in Japan which focussed on Japanese Management Accounting in the Automobile Industry. For that project, I collaborated with four Japanese universities namely, Kyushu University, Kyushu Sangyo University, University of Konan and University of Tsukuba. The internationalization of AMARC was spearheaded by these collaborations. As AMARC founding members, Prof Ibrahim and I, were invited by Prof Akira Nishimura to form an international association called the Asia-Pacific Management Accounting Association (APMAA). The founding members of this newly formed association comprised ten international professors from Japan, Korea, China, Thailand, Singapore and Malaysia.
With some international reputations, Dean Professor Dr Ibrahim convinced the Malaysian Institute of Accountants (MIA), CIMA and NPC to work collaboratively with AMARC on a national benchmarking project called the National Award for Management Accounting (NAfMA). NAfMA was launched by CIMA president during CIMA's second international conference in 2004 and the first NAfMA competition began.
Today, both AMARC and APMAA work closely together to bring our two entities to much greater heights. Our focus now is not just limited to the Asian or Asia-Pacific regions. Under the leadership of Prof Datin Dr Suzana, AMARC will venture into more international research collaborations with professors from the USA, Australia, Africa, New Zealand, Canada and Europe. We have targeted to be fully international by the year 2015...
