The teaching-research gestalt in accounting: a cluster analytic approach

This paper examines the views of accounting academics in the UK towards the mutuality of accounting research and education. These views are captured by administering a survey instrument that measures eleven dimensions of the relationship between teaching and research in the accounting discipline. This model was developed from the extant education literature considering those factors that encourage or militate against the integration of accounting research and education (the teaching-research gestalt). These factors relate to issues relating to students, researchers, the curriculum and extrinsic rewards available. Using a cluster-analytic method, we identify three clusters of accounting academics. Two contrasting clusters comprise academics with a world of ‘teaching-research incongruity’ and whereby teaching and research are seen as largely mutually exclusive activities; and academics who perceive a world of ‘teaching-research connexion’ who view teaching and research as mutually reinforcing and compatible. A third cluster, allied to the world of teaching-research incongruity, emphasises the lack of extrinsic rewards for integrating teaching and research. This third cluster we label ‘Extrinsic-reward focus’. The clusters are described in terms of their demographics. There are significant barriers to integrating accounting research into education; these include the role of accreditation and resistance from many accounting academics in universities.