Creating better humans towards sustainable competitive advantage for small and medium-sized accounting firms in Malaysia

Abstract

This study will be a bit different than others in the sense that it pierces directly into the human hearts. The world current economy is full of mysterious and uncertainty. There are plenty of different perspectives, but who can guarantee that they are right? The root of the problems of all issues generally come from the human heart or action. If we able to deal with human issues, it sorts out almost all the problems. The purpose of this study is to determine the contributing factors towards the sustainable competitive advantage (SCA) of small and medium-sized accounting firms (SMPs) in Malaysia. It aims to have a long-term impact on the prospects for the practitioners and the accounting professions. It becomes an attention to the world when numerous accounting scandals being published, and they jeopardized the accounting professions’ reputations. There are a few undisclosed cases especially it dealt with compliance, corporate tax, GST, money laundering and other issues, not only in Malaysia but in other countries as well. As such, the study focuses on creating better humans. Key findings from the literature highlighted the deficiencies in the core competencies of the firms. They are related to human capital and most of the researchers pinpointed the importance of knowledge, skills, capabilities in which it links to competencies in the corporate environment. The resource-based view of the firm is a common theory used by researchers as a mean of explaining competitive advantage and superior performance amongst the firms. And most of them stress the necessity to meet customer needs and expectation to create a sustainable competitive advantage.