There are several related reasons for this special issue on strategic management accounting (SMA). For one thing, the last special issue on this topic was in 1966.Since then the velocity and interacting nature of changes in the external environment continue to transform the strategic management(SM) tools and concepts of practitioners, consultants and researchers.Increasingly, a goal of organizational design is to institutionalize change, to create flexible and adaptive systems, structure and cultures in order to anticipate and respond quickly to change. The strategic and organizational design imperatives of rapidly changing environments are the shifting landscape of SM and SMA. This changing landscape can quickly and almost insidiously render well-established concepts and practices obsolete. Rapid change and discontinuities ensure that the risk of “Relevance Lost” is ever present.