This paper examined six hypotheses concerning the achievement of AIS alignment in the specific context of manufacturing SMEs in Malaysia. It has made an important contribution by providing an increased understanding of AIS alignment in SMEs, which has received little attention in the literature. Using a cluster
analysis based on the moderation approach, it was possible to identify two groups of SMEs. One group of firms had achieved some success in aligning their AIS capacity with their AIS requirements as measured by the moderation approach, while AIS alignment was lower in the other group. It would appear that the moderation approach adopted was effective in distinguishing two groups with different AIS alignment characteristics. By systematically testing the six hypotheses against these two groups of firms, some associations between the six variables and AIS alignment were confirmed. The evidence suggests that the major factors that influenced AIS alignment among the sample firms were informational sophistication, owner/manager accounting knowledge,
advice from relevant government agencies and accounting firms, and the existence of internal IT staff. Firm size measured by the number of employees, however, seemed to have the inverse relationship with AIS alignment, where aligned firms were smaller when compared to the not-aligned firms. This finding is rather surprising and indicates the need for further research into the processes associated with AIS alignment in SMEs.