Guest editorial

George Smith (University of South Carolina Beaufort, Bluffton, USA)
Kathleen Barnes (Management Department, Salem State College, Mount Bethel, Pennsylvania, USA)
Sarah Vaughan (ICN Business School, Nancy, France)

Organization Management Journal

ISSN: 2753-8567

Article publication date: 24 November 2021

Issue publication date: 24 November 2021

226

Citation

Smith, G., Barnes, K. and Vaughan, S. (2021), "Guest editorial", Organization Management Journal , Vol. 18 No. 5, pp. 174-175. https://doi.org/10.1108/OMJ-11-2021-968

Publisher

:

Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2021, George Smith, Kathleen Barnes and Sarah Vaughan.

License

Published in Organization Management Journal. Published by Emerald Publishing Limited. This article is published under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) licence. Anyone may reproduce, distribute, translate and create derivative works of this article (for both commercial and non-commercial purposes), subject to full attribution to the original publication and authors. The full terms of this licence maybe seen at http://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0/legalcode


Association for the advancement of collegiate schools of business (AACSB international) accreditation current issues: practical research

The Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) accreditation process is complex and can bring with it benefits. However, there is also a need to make substantive changes that affect overarching mission and strategy, staffing levels and deployment, curriculum, budgeting (one-time costs and annual operating expenditures), and organizational culture. Heriot and Austin (2009), for example, note that “the (a) costs and (b) benefits of changing their programs” (p. 283) are two issues that all academic institutions should account for when considering accreditation.

Once accreditation is achieved, members commit to a regular process of self-assessment, monitoring, program improvement and peer review. Per AACSB:

The fundamental purpose of AACSB (2021b) accreditation is to encourage business schools to hold themselves accountable for improving business practice through a commitment to strategic management, learner success, and impactful thought leadership. (2020 Guiding Principles and Standards for Business Accreditation, p. 9)

Accountability is achieved through an ongoing review process that involves constant and consistent monitoring and measurement and continuous improvement efforts. As a result, initial accreditation is in actuality a starting point, not a point of finality.

This special issue represents an understated benefit of AACSB membership and that is the network and community of scholars and practitioners. In this issue, these individuals have come together to share their unique insights and experiences in hopes of benefitting the greater AACSB community. The articles in this issue explore changes related to the implementation and maturation of Assurance of Learning (AoL) processes, adoption of data management systems and for data collection and reporting, and finally thoughts on the Continuous Improvement Reporting (CIR) process. The subsequent paragraphs provide a brief overview of this issue’s articles.

First, “Leading in Assessment: Responding to Faculty Resistance and Recognizing Signs of Maturity” examines the accreditation process by overlaying it with a three-stage model of AoL maturation exploring and delineating growth and progress in the formalization and institutionalization of the AoL process. This article is particularly poignant in its exploration of the accreditation process at the level of the affected participants providing thoughts on approaches for consistently generating “small wins.”

The second article in this special edition, “Selecting and Using Faculty Data Management Software Systems,” is an extension of Bisoux’s (2013) article “The Data is in the Details.” The authors seek to better understand how schools make decisions regarding the adoption of a faculty data management software system as part of the accreditation process and effort.

Finally, “Maintaining AACSB International Accreditation: From Basics to Best Practices” emphasizes the fact that initial accreditation is but a first step. Programs successfully completing initial accreditation enter into an ongoing cycle of CIR “a process of documented continuous improvements in support of the stated mission and strategic management plan [that] will sustain AACSB accreditation status” (AACSB, 2021a).

An interesting observation raised in this final article discusses the impact of dean turnover.

We express our gratitude to the contributors to this special issue and their contributions to furthering our knowledge and the repository of knowledge with regard to AACSB accreditation.

While there is no guarantee that absolute solutions and answers to any readers problems and questions can be found here, undoubtedly guideposts and aids can be discovered pushing us all to consider new approaches and broader framing and refinement of the challenges we face.

References

AACSB (2021a). Continuous improvement review handbook. Retrieved from www.aacsb.edu/-/media/aacsb/docs/accreditation/business/continuous-improvement-review/continuousimprovementreviewhandbook_busacctg.ashx?la=en&hash=D24D898AC81D872AB1CD008FB0EA09ED6EE50965 (accessed 1 June 2021).

AACSB (2021b). 2020 Guiding principles and standards for business accreditation. Retrieved from www.aacsb.edu/-/media/aacsb/docs/accreditation/business/standards-and-tables/2020%20aacsb%20business%20accreditation%20standards%20july%202021.ashx?la=en&hash=FFDE475EE45DE3610525117BAD72B9CAF10DDB25 (accessed 25 October 2021).

Heriot, K. C. & Austin, W. W. (2009). Applying for initial AACSB accreditation: an exploratory study to identify costs. Journal of Education for Business, 84(5), 283-289. doi: 10.3200/JOEB.84.5.283-289.

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