Abstract The article focuses on the interaction between accounting teaching and research, and accounting teaching and practice. The author is mainly concerned about the barriers to the acceptance in practice of accounting research conclusions. One of them is simple inertia. It is easier to continue doing what one has been doing than it is to agree to change one's behavior based upon the results of research activity. Another barrier is outright resistance to change. Many derive great comfort from being able to continue to act as they have acted. They get comfortable with the predictability of the approaches being followed and are troubled by the uncertainty that always accompanies a change in practice. A third barrier related to much academic research is the simple label that the research was undertaken by an academic. Everyone knows that an academic does not have a good feel for what will work in practice and therefore practice need not pay a great deal of attention to the results of academic research. A final barrier is a perceived need to accommodate in practice at least some of the views of various constituents. Rather than simply implement the results of a studious research effort, practitioners often will evaluate the extent to which the views of various constituents should be permitted to modify the research conclusions in order to gain some measure of acceptability.
Arthur Wyat (Wed,) studied this question.