TY - JOUR
T1 - Accounting and finance in UK universities
T2 - Academic labour, shortages and strategies
AU - Smith, Sarah Jane
AU - Urquhart, Vivien
N1 - Thanks to The Scottish Accountancy Trust for Education and Research for funding research drawn upon in this paper. Particular thanks go to the UK academics and current PhD students who participated in interviews. We would also express our gratitude to the anonymous reviewers and journal editor who provided very useful comments on earlier drafts of this paper.
PY - 2018/11
Y1 - 2018/11
N2 - This paper contributes to the literature on change in the higher education sector arising from massification, increased political control, international mobility and competition. Drawing on various data sources and labour shortage models, it considers academic labour in UK accounting and finance academia over the period 2000 to 2012. A disequilibrium between supply and demand is evidenced through the identification of recruitment problems, unfilled vacancies, and retirements. The impact of research assessment on faculty backgrounds is shown to result in inadequate supply of faculty with the required skills. Strategic responses to labour shortages include: increased recruitment efforts, early promotions, enhanced remuneration and reducing restrictions on occupational entry. The consequences and future implications of shortages and strategies are considered. In particular, the decoupling of research and teaching in accounting is challenging the future existence of accounting as an academic discipline. The current generation of accounting academics is also under threat – if they neither excel at research nor are professionally-qualified they risk becoming undesirable.
AB - This paper contributes to the literature on change in the higher education sector arising from massification, increased political control, international mobility and competition. Drawing on various data sources and labour shortage models, it considers academic labour in UK accounting and finance academia over the period 2000 to 2012. A disequilibrium between supply and demand is evidenced through the identification of recruitment problems, unfilled vacancies, and retirements. The impact of research assessment on faculty backgrounds is shown to result in inadequate supply of faculty with the required skills. Strategic responses to labour shortages include: increased recruitment efforts, early promotions, enhanced remuneration and reducing restrictions on occupational entry. The consequences and future implications of shortages and strategies are considered. In particular, the decoupling of research and teaching in accounting is challenging the future existence of accounting as an academic discipline. The current generation of accounting academics is also under threat – if they neither excel at research nor are professionally-qualified they risk becoming undesirable.
KW - Academic labour
KW - Accounting and finance
KW - Labour shortages
KW - Restructuring
KW - UK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85046115888&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://hdl.handle.net/1893/27237
U2 - 10.1016/j.bar.2018.03.002
DO - 10.1016/j.bar.2018.03.002
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85046115888
VL - 50
SP - 588
EP - 601
JO - British Accounting Review
JF - British Accounting Review
SN - 0890-8389
IS - 6
ER -