Determinants of outsourcing of the accounting function in French companies.

Summary While much research has focused on the determinants of outsourcing of support functions (particularly the information systems function), fewer studies have focused on the accounting function. Using the Ministry of Labor's REPONSE survey, our study is the first to focus on a sample of more than 3,000 establishments representative of the French economy. It identifies the factors that explain the practice of outsourcing the accounting function. It also invites us to compare these factors with those of other support functions. We show that outsourcing the accounting function can be associated with a managerial opportunity in terms of size and the influence of financial markets, constrained by factors of reticence in terms of age and union influence. A discussion puts these results into perspective with respect to the existing literature.