In the process of management accounting change of a firm,an important question arises as the firms absorption of new techniques of management accounting beyond its organizational boundary.This is the repelling effect that established management control system(MCS)in a firm produces an incompatibility with new techniques of management accounting absorbed by the firm from the outside due to interdependency of various parts of existing MCS.In context of SOEs reform,the repelling effect seems much worse if SOEs try to absorb totally different techniques of management accounting from their Western counterparts.Combining resource based view(RBV)and agency theory,this study is aimed to explore why the repelling effect emerged,as well as whether there is a follow-up change to deal with it.A qualitative case study is conducted in the context of SOE reform with absorption of management accounting techniques for case firm from Western partner practice.The main findings of this study implicate that both the agency problems and heterogeneous resource base result in the repelling effect in process of management accounting change.The follow-up change for case firm has confronted a dilemma to change absorbed management accounting techniques or other part of existing management accounting practice of that firm.This study could cast new light on management accounting change and its contextualization in SOEs reform.