Choice criteria in the selection of international accounting firms

The six largest international accounting firms in the world offer a variety of business services ranging from the traditional areas of audit and tax to the newer areas of retail consulting, salary surveys, project management for information systems and psychological profiling of staff, managers and prospective employees. Uses factor analysis to examine the dimensions on which local (host country) clients of such firms base their assessments when evaluating and selecting the service provider for these services. The factors identified as being important for selection of a firm differed from those traditionally accepted as being used to assess service quality. In addition, an image‐related factor was identified as being significantly related to some of the clients′ assessments of performance. Clients′ assessments of the different dimensions were also related more to personal, rather than non‐personal sources of information, and the factors were found to be consistent across the range of services offered.