Viewpoint: Doing Things the Hard Way—Problems with Mission-Linked AACSB Accreditation Standards and Suggestions for Improvement

Abstract

Abstract Under the new AACSB standards, business schools may designate teaching as their primary mission, making teaching effectiveness, rather than research productivity, the major consideration in accreditation. It is considerably more difficult to assess teaching effectiveness than it is to assess research productivity, and the fundamental indicator of teaching effectiveness, career success of graduates, is virtually impossible to measure accurately. Business school faculties preparing for accreditation or re-accreditation thus are forced to emphasize superficial and unreliable indicators such as the number of course changes approved by curriculum committees. The AACSB should devise a set of reasonable accreditation standards, with numerical guidelines established for measurable variables, and issue Certificates of Distinction to a minority of business schools that maintain very high levels of faculty research productivity.