Samenvatting

After the integration of research activities, universities of applied sciences (UASs) have formulated organisational strategies to foster connections between research and education (Daas et al., 2023). Scholars stated that the behaviour of employees within UASs influences ‘the direction and tempo in which the proposed aims are reached or resisted in the wider organisation’ (Griffioen & De Jong, 2017, p. 454). Thus, employees within UASs, such as academics and lower-level managers, play a key role in establishing research-education connections (Jenkins & Healey, 2005; Van der Rijst, 2009). A recent study has shown that academics and lower-level managers connect research and education through three types of behaviours: by involving aspects of research in education, by involving aspects of education in research, and by involving aspects of research and education equally, with the first type mentioned most often (Daas & Griffioen, in review). Similar patterns are observed in previous studies highlighting how education benefits from research rather than vice versa (Taylor, 2007). However, the beliefs underpinning this behavioural focus still remain unclear. Scholars have reported factors that could influence employees in connecting research and education, such as career stages, personal abilities and the availability of resources influencing how academics combine research and teaching tasks (Coate, Barnett & Williams, 2001; Shin, 2011), and research productivity and teaching beliefs influencing how academics integrate research in teaching (Hu et al., 2015; Magi & Beerkens, 2016). Despite the important value of these insights, these studies all focus on one (set of) behaviour(s) in connecting research and education instead of considering factors influencing behaviours in connecting research and education holistically. Moreover, most of these studies consider academics instead of managers. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to investigate the beliefs underpinning the behaviour of academics and lower-level managers in UASs in connecting research and education. To study the underpinning beliefs we applied the Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB; Ajzen, 1991) as a theoretical lens. According to the TPB, a person’s behavioural intentions are shaped through three determinants (Ajzen, 1991). Behavioural beliefs (1) refer to a person’s conceptions about the expected positive/negative outcomes of practicing the behaviour. Normative beliefs (2) consist of a person’s conceptions about whether others approve/disapprove of practicing the behaviour. Control beliefs (3) are a person's conceptions about the presumed factors that could enable/hinder in practicing the behaviour. The research question is: Which behavioural, normative and control beliefs underpin the behaviour of academics and lower-level managers in connecting research and education?