Abstract

The present study was conducted to identify factors that affect Pakistani manufacturing SMEs decisions tooutsource management accounting practices in terms of transaction cost economics (TCE) and resource-basedview (RBV). A survey of 302 SMEs was carried out using convenience sampling, a personal interviewowners/managers/CFOs located in 9 major cities of Pakistan. Our multiple regression analysis revealed that thefrequency of non-routine tasks, asset specificity, opportunism, trust in accountant and competition has asignificant impact on accounting outsourcing. Furthermore, whilst we include control variables like gender,executive education, experience, firm size and firm age in our linear regression equation, the relationship amongfive variables and outsourcing intensity was remain statistically significant. The findings imply that SMEs withresource constraint should shift their traditional in-house accounting practices to the external knowledgeableprofessional accountant. Finally, this study contributes to the body of knowledge with respect to managementaccounting outsourcing, TCE and RBV in the emerging economics context.

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