Paper #536

Title:

Teaching, research and service: Experience and opinions of accounting Spanish academics

Author:

Ester Oliveras

Date:

March 2001

Abstract:

Research, teaching and service are the main activities carried out in almost all European universities. Previous research, which has been mainly centred in North-American universities, has found solid results indicating that research and teaching are not equally valued when deciding on faculty promotion. This conclusion creates a potential conflict for accounting academics on how to distribute working time in order to accomplish personal career objectives. This paper presents the results of a survey realised in two European countries: Spain and the United Kingdom, which intended to explore the opinions and personal experience of accounting academics working in these countries. Specifically, we focus on the following issues: (i) The impact of teaching and service on time available for research; (ii) The integration of teaching and research; (iii) The perceived value of teaching and research for career success and (iv) The interaction between professional accounting and accounting research. The results show that both in Spain and in the United Kingdom there is a conflict between teaching and research, which has its origin in the importance attached to research activities on promotion decisions. It also seems evident that so far, the conflict is being solved in favour of research in prejudice of teaching.

Keywords:

Teaching, research, accounting

JEL codes:

M41

Area of Research:

Finance and Accounting

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