STANDARDS FOR BUSINESS ACCREDITATION AACSB INTERNATIONAL

Strategic Management Standards

1. The school publishes a mission statement or its equivalent that provides direction for making decisions. The mission statement derives from a process that includes the viewpoints of various stakeholders. The school periodically reviews and revises the mission statement as appropriate. The review process involves appropriate stakeholders. [MISSION STATEMENT]


2. The school's mission statement is appropriate to higher education for management and consonant with the mission of any institution of which the school is a part. The mission includes the production of intellectual contributions that advance the knowledge and practice of business and management. [MISSION APPROPRIATENESS]


3. The mission statement or supporting documents specify the student populations the school intends to serve. [STUDENT MISSION]


4. The school specifies action items that represent high priority continuous improvement efforts. [CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT OBJECTIVES]


5. The school has financial strategies to provide resources appropriate to, and sufficient for, achieving its mission and action items. [FINANCIAL STRATEGIES]



Participants Standards

6. The policies for admission to business degree programs offered by the school are clear and consistent with the school's mission. [STUDENT ADMISSION]


7. The school has academic standards and retention practices that produce high quality graduates. The academic standards and retention practices are consistent with the school’s mission. [STUDENT RETENTION]


8. The school maintains a staff sufficient to provide stability and ongoing quality improvement for student support activities. Student support activities reflect the school’s mission and programs and the students’ characteristics. [STAFF SUFFICIENCYSTUDENT SUPPORT]


9. The school maintains a faculty sufficient to provide stability and ongoing quality improvement for the instructional programs offered. The deployment of faculty resources reflects the mission and programs. Students in all programs, majors, areas of emphasis, and locations have the opportunity to receive instruction from appropriately qualified faculty. [FACULTY SUFFICIENCY]


10. The faculty has, and maintains, intellectual qualifications and current expertise to accomplish the mission and to assure that this occurs, the school has a clearly defined process to evaluate individual faculty member’s contributions to the school’s mission. [FACULTY QUALIFICATIONS]


11. The school has well-documented and communicated processes in place to manage and support faculty members over the progression of their careers consistent with the school’s mission. These include:
    • Determining appropriate teaching assignments, intellectual expectations, and service workloads.
    • Providing staff and other mechanisms to support faculty in meeting the expectations the school holds for them on all mission-related activities.
    • Providing orientation, guidance and mentoring.
    • Undertaking formal periodic review, promotion, and reward processes.
    • Maintaining overall plans for faculty resources.
    [FACULTY MANAGEMENT AND SUPPORT]


12. The business school's faculty in aggregate, its faculty subunits, and individual faculty, administrators, and staff share responsibility to:
    • Ensure adequate time is devoted to learning activities for all faculty members and students.
    • Ensure adequate student-faculty contact across the learning experiences.
    • Set high expectations for academic achievement and provide leadership toward those expectations.
    • Evaluate instructional effectiveness and overall student achievement.
    • Continuously improve instructional programs.
    • Innovate in instructional processes.
    [AGGREGATE FACULTY AND STAFF EDUCATIONAL RESPONSIBILITY]


13. Individual teaching faculty members:
    • Operate with integrity in their dealings with students and colleagues.
    • Keep their own knowledge current with the continuing development of their teaching disciplines.
    • Actively involve students in the learning process.
    • Encourage collaboration and cooperation among participants.
    • Ensure frequent, prompt feedback on student performance.
    [INDIVIDUAL FACULTY EDUCATIONAL RESPONSIBILITY]


14. Individual Students:
    • Operate with integrity in their dealings with faculty and other students.
    • Engage the learning materials with appropriate attention and dedication.
    • Maintain their engagement when challenged by difficult learning activities.
    • Contribute to the learning of others.
    • Perform to standards set by the faculty.
    [STUDENT EDUCATIONAL RESPONSIBILITY]



Assurance of Learning Standards

15. Management of Curricula: The school uses well documented, systematic processes to develop, monitor, evaluate, and revise the substance and delivery of the curricula of degree programs and to assess the impact of the curricula on learning. Curriculum management includes inputs from all appropriate constituencies which may include faculty, staff, administrators, students, faculty from non-business disciplines, alumni, and the business community served by the school.
    
    The standard requires use of a systematic process for curriculum management but does not require any specific courses in the curriculum. Normally, the curriculum management process will result in an undergraduate degree program that includes learning experiences in such general knowledge and skill areas as:
    • Communication abilities.
    • Ethical understanding and reasoning abilities.
    • Analytic skills.
    • Use of information technology.
    • Multicultural and diversity understanding.
    • Reflective thinking skills.
    
    Normally, the curriculum management process will result in undergraduate and master’s level general management degree programs that will include learning experiences in such management-specific knowledge and skills areas as:
    • Ethical and legal responsibilities in organizations and society.
    • Financial theories, analysis, reporting, and markets.
    • Creation of value through the integrated production and distribution of goods, services, and information.
    • Group and individual dynamics in organizations.
    • Statistical data analysis and management science as they support decision-making processes throughout an organization.
    • Information technologies as they influence the structure and processes of organizations and economies, and as they influence the roles and techniques of management.
    • Domestic and global economic environments of organizations.
    • Other management-specific knowledge and abilities as identified by the school.
    [MANAGEMENT OF CURRICULA]


16. Bachelor’s or undergraduate level degree: Knowledge and skills. Adapting expectations to the school’s mission and cultural circumstances, the school specifies learning goals and demonstrates achievement of learning goals for key general, management-specific, and/or appropriate discipline-specific knowledge and skills that its students achieve in each undergraduate degree program. [UNDERGRADUATE LEARNING GOALS]


17. The bachelor’s or undergraduate level degree programs must provide sufficient time, content coverage, student effort, and student-faculty interaction to assure that the learning goals are accomplished. [UNDERGRADUATE EDUCATIONAL LEVEL]


18. Master’s level degree in general management (e.g., MBA) programs: Knowledge and skills. Participation in a master’s level degree program presupposes the base of general knowledge and skills appropriate to an undergraduate degree. Learning at the master’s level is developed in a more integrative, interdisciplinary fashion than undergraduate education.
    
    The capacities developed through the knowledge and skills of a general master’s level program are:
    • Capacity to lead in organizational situations.
    • Capacity to apply knowledge in new and unfamiliar circumstances through a conceptual understanding of relevant disciplines.
    • Capacity to adapt and innovate to solve problems, to cope with unforeseen events, and to manage in unpredictable environments.
    
    Adapting expectations to the school’s mission and cultural circumstances, the school specifies learning goals and demonstrates master’s level achievement of learning goals for key management-specific knowledge and skills in each master’s level general management program. [MASTER’S LEVEL GENERAL MANAGEMENT LEARNING GOALS]


19. Master’s level degree in specialized programs: Knowledge and Skills. Participation in a master’s level program presupposes the base of general knowledge and skills appropriate to an undergraduate degree and is at a more advanced level.
    
    The level of knowledge represented by the students of a specialized master’s level program is the:
    • Application of knowledge even in new and unfamiliar circumstances through a conceptual understanding of the specialization.
    • Ability to adapt and innovate to solve problems.
    • Capacity to critically analyze and question knowledge claims in the specialized discipline.
    
    Master’s level students in specialized degree programs demonstrate knowledge of theories, models, and tools relevant to their specialty field. They are able to apply appropriate specialized theories, models, and tools to solve concrete business and managerial problems. Adapting expectations to the school’s mission and cultural circumstances, the school specifies learning goals and demonstrates achievement of learning goals in each specialized master’s degree program. [SPECIALIZED MASTER’S DEGREE LEARNING GOALS]


20. The master’s level degree programs must provide sufficient time, content coverage, student effort, and student-faculty interaction to assure that the learning goals are accomplished. [MASTER’S EDUCATIONAL LEVEL]


21. Doctoral level degree: Knowledge and Skills: Doctoral programs educate students for highly specialized careers in academe or practice. Students of doctoral level programs demonstrate the ability to create knowledge through original research in their areas of specialization.
    
    Normally, doctoral programs will include:
    • The acquisition of advanced knowledge in areas of specialization.
    • The development of advanced theoretical or practical research skills for the areas of specialization.
    • Explicit attention to the role of the specialization areas in managerial and organizational contexts.
    • Preparation for teaching responsibilities in higher education (for those students who expect to enter teaching careers).
    • Dissertation, or equivalent, demonstrating personal integration of, and original intellectual contribution to, a field of knowledge.
    • Other areas as identified by the school.
    [DOCTORAL LEARNING GOALS]

Source: Eligibility Procedures and Accreditation Standards for Business Accreditation, AACSB International – The Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business