The involvement of management accounting in strategic decision and coordination activities remains a controversial issue in the literature. Our objective was to prove the relevance or irrelevance of management accounting by analyzing the degree of input in the context of a typical strategic decision. We conducted an empirical investigation of offshoring by means of 17 semi-structured interviews with managers and accountants from 14 multinational enterprises. We analyzed the role of management accounting in different phases of offshoring, drawing attention to the nature and level of participation in both the pre-decision period and in ongoing activities. We use the resource-based view and inter-organization literature to classify offshoring. Offshoring aims at gaining competitive advantage through cost reduction and access to large numbers of qualified employees in low-wage countries. It can be described as an innovative inter-organizational business practice which is subject to uncertainty and complexity. Therefore, offshoring possesses various characteristics that typically require information and decision support from management accounting. However, the case studies provided evidence that management accounting is involved in offshoring to a much lower extent than expected. The reasons range from contractual agreements between the different parties, which substitute in part for management accounting interventions, to competence problems in accounting departments. Furthermore, management accounting often fails to provide strategic planning and coordination instruments. Thus, different departments either try to implement the offshoring strategy themselves or with the support of external consultants. This is independent of the business model and applies both to offshore-outsourcing and to offshore subsidiaries. In some cases, the specific requirements of offshoring projects lead to a direct monitoring of the correspondent departments without the participation of management accounting. However, communication problems, such as misinterpretations and a lack of feedback as well as hidden transaction costs indicate an increased need for coordinated information processing.