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This purpose of this study is to examine the extent to which accreditation of public affairs programs can be a tool to advance social equity, diversity, and inclusion. The paper is presented in the context of the widespread acceptance of the importance of addressing social inequalities in Latin America and the critical role that public policy and public administration can have on advancing these goals.

International and national accreditation standards are compared using content analysis for their reference to social equity and diversity in their standards regarding faculty, students, curriculum content and learning outcomes. The research applies content analysis of key documents and thematic coding.

International accrediting agencies that focused explicitly on programs in public affairs place a much greater emphasis on social equity and diversity than their national counterparts which accredit a full range of programs and institutions. National accrediting agencies assert the value of diversity, but their standards and reporting requirements suggest otherwise.

The research suggests that international accreditation standards have the potential to advance social equity goals more effectively than national standards and that there is great potential to enhance this component of national accreditation standards. Implications for policymakers, accreditation professionals and scholars are identified.

The research is original in its focus on the role of accreditation in promoting social equity and its comparison of national and international standards. Although limited to Latin America and public affairs programs, the research provides a basis for examining similar patterns with respect to other disciplines and professions, and in other regions of the world.

The purpose of this paper is to provide insight into quality management for business education. The paper provides business schools and Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) with information about two different quality standards and suggests how the AACSB accreditation process might be strengthened – thereby improving the quality of the education process and product.

The authors compare two prevalent but different approaches to quality management: the AACSB accreditation standards and ISO 9001, a set of quality requirements developed by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). For this comparison, the authors review the literature in the field, including published quality standards, organization examples documenting implementation of AACSB or ISO 9001 standards, and existing empirical research results on the two approaches.

Both quality approaches have their merits and followers. It seems feasible that AACSB might be able to borrow some elements from the ISO 9001 components and process to improve their accreditation process. For example, they might wish to consider more standardized auditor training, the use of a third party auditing body, incorporation of a process orientation and a system of continuous improvement, as well as more overall reliance on the quality principles in ISO 9001.

This paper is a conceptual one without empirical data. As such, it has limitations. Further research is needed to gather empirical data to continue the investigation between these two approaches to quality management in education.

It is hoped that, with awareness and integration of some of the ISO 9001 components, AACSB and educational administrators are able to improve the accreditation process for business schools, thereby improving the overall education process and product.

The paper provides a comparison of two different but prevalent approaches to quality management within educational organizations. It presents insight for business schools seeking to adopt either of these approaches and provides suggestions for improvement of the AACSB standards. This discussion is valuable as it seeks to improve the quality of business education while it operates in an environment with increasingly limited resources.

The purpose of this paper is to report on the findings of an exploratory survey designed to measure AACSB member deans’ perceptions about the recently revised 2013 Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) Accreditation Standards. In April of 2013, AACSB International released a major revision of its accreditation standards to better reflect the increased globalization of management education.

The present study surveyed AACSB member school deans via e-mail using SurveyMonkey during October and early November of 2013. A total of 1,131 valid e-mail addresses were found for the deans/heads of member schools (accredited and non-accredited). In total, 259 surveys were completed, resulting in a 23 per cent response rate for member schools with valid e-mails (n = 1,131).

The present study found that the AACSB membership largely perceives that AACSB accreditation is a basic requirement to be a credible and competitive business school, is an indicator of a quality education and is linked to enhancing a business school’s ability to be effective in faculty recruitment and student placement. Even business school’s holding association of MBA (AMBA) and the European Foundation for Management Development’s International Accreditation Program (EQUIS) accreditation seemed to think that AACSB accreditation is a basic requirement to be a competitive business school. The most notable finding of this study is that most deans indicated that they will be able to meet the 2013 standards.

Although at the time of the survey no business school had been subject to review under the new standards, member deans largely felt that the guiding principles and values and the accreditation standards themselves are achievable. In addition, there was widespread agreement that AACSB accreditation is valuable, meaningful and essential in today’s globally competitive environment.

Clinical governance is the linchpin of the UK government's quality improvement strategy for the country's National Health Service. Extending quality accreditation programmes from hospitals into the primary care sector — local general practice surgeries — presents a critical set of challenges. In this extract from Accreditation in Primary Care, Nicola Walsh and Kieran Walshe explore how to evaluate accreditation initiatives to assure the quality of primary care.

Understanding and navigating the differences in standards, and the roots and rationales underlying accreditation reviews, is necessary for all institutions that seek multiple accreditations. The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate a method to assist institutional-level leaders and assessment practitioners analyze and align these differences in various national or international agency requirements, to develop a framework for assessment and data collection. The proposed method is demonstrated by using multiple accreditors’ standards from the USA.

Guided by a set of process questions, a review and content analysis of national standards and 12 accreditation agency requirements from the USA was conducted using Web-based, documentary sources. An operational definition of institutional quality was derived based on the core themes that emerged. Examples of evidence matched to each core theme were outlined to suggest an assessment framework. The 12 US agency requirements were compared and contrasted with the core themes and validated.

In the USA, recognition requirements set by two national bodies, the US Department of Education and Council of Higher Education Accreditation, drive the standards applied by various agencies that accredit institutions and programs. Six themes emerged from their requirements, serving as a core framework for designing institutional assessment systems. The themes are student achievement and continuous improvement; curriculum quality; faculty; facilities, equipment and supplies; fiscal and administrative capacity; and student support services, admissions and information-gathering systems. While the 12 sampled accreditation agencies generally used these core themes, divergences were found in how they treated the themes in published requirements.

Where multiple US or other accreditations are sought, the approach recommended could facilitate the work of institutional accreditation leaders and practitioners in establishing assessment systems that reduce redundancy while also maximizing efficiency in assessment and data collection.

There is little guidance in the literature on how institutional leaders and practitioners confronting the challenges of accreditation can negotiate multiple, and sometimes conflicting, sets of requirements. This paper demonstrates a possible solution strategy. Outside the general utility of the demonstrated method, the findings and core assessment framework produced could be useful for institutions seeking accreditation through the agencies in the study sample, in both the USA and overseas.

The Commission on Accreditation of Rehabilitation Facilities (CARF) has experienced considerable market growth in recent years. Growth has occurred in the health care industry with exceptional growth occurring in the fields of persons with disabilities and children’s services. Expansion of their services beyond the American boarders has resulted in CARF accrediting organizations in Canada, Ireland and Sweden with active work occurring in Denmark, Finland, France, Scotland, Italy, England and Australia. In Canada, policy makers at all levels of government began demanding greater community involvement in consumer service delivery. Policy makers and consumers made it clear that a system of accountability needed to be incorporated to ensure quality of service. In order to address the resulting growth in Canada and listen to the needs of consumers it became apparent that a separate office was required to meet the unique needs of Canadians. CARF Canada was established to meet the needs.

The purpose of this study is to examine the management perceptions towards calculative practices behind the reconstruction of a mandatory hospital accreditation (HA) system that transforms multiple facets of health-care quality into a single performance index.

This study contributes to the sociology of quantification mobilising the concept of commensuration as a social process to reflect on contemporary changes in managing HA systems. Data are collected adopting a case study of a Spanish public hospital drawing on semi-structured interviews, observation and documentary review.

Findings emphasise a shift from standards’ compliance to a more comprehensive view encouraging continuous quality improvement. Accreditation acts as a tin opener to facilitate external inspection removing contextual differences amongst hospitals and reducing organisational practices into controllable objects. It also reveals underlying ethical concerns as the system was built as a care quality measure that promptly developed into an attainment goal.

The valuable role of HA to enhance quality standards and the limitations resulting from its commensuration practices will be of interest to policymakers, organisational managers and researchers.

Despite a growing emphasis on audit and valuation practices in health care, accounting studies examining the capacity of public hospitals to manage quality improvement are scarce. This study inspires further research on accreditation to overcome commensuration flaws regarding external transparency, evaluation ambiguity and extra incentives.

The purpose of this paper is to consider the implications of the 2013 Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) Accreditation Standards for both business faculty and their deans who are responsible for implementing these changes.

This paper is a speculative viewpoint on the implications of the 2013 AACSB standards by a set of a co-authors that include AACSB deans who are active in accreditation reviews and serve as mentors to schools in the accreditation process and senior faculty who have written self-studies for AACSB and served as consultants for schools seeking AACSB accreditation internationally.

The implications of the 2013 AACSB business accreditation standards are arguably positive for active scholars holding a relevant doctoral degree. For example, active and engaged scholarly faculty should appreciate the ability to use additional indicators of the impact of their career’s intellectual contributions (IC) including, but not limited to, citations, editor ships, professional leadership positions and other measures of professional esteem.

The implications of the 2013 AACSB accreditation standards for deans are potentially less positive. The new standards codify one of the deans’ major duties – that of ensuring that the faculty have resources adequate to support the school’s mission.

This paper represents a starting point for understanding the implications of the 2013 AACSB accreditation standards, and that as the standards are operationalized over the subsequent years that these standards, like the previous changes in AACSB standards, will stimulate additional research on business school accreditation. The implications for both faculty and deans are speculative, but are grounded both by the literature and experience of the authors. The paper uses a set of tables to illustrate the impact of the new AACSB standards with examples for each guiding principle and standard.

Accreditation is an essential component in primary healthcare (PHC) systems. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the most suitable PHC accreditation models and standards, worldwide, and to prepare a comprehensive and unbiased summary from research on these models.

A systematic search was undertaken using Web of Science, Scopus, Science Direct, Springer, PubMed and ProQuest databases in August 2016 and updated in January 2018. English language studies addressing PHC accreditation standards and models, published between 1995 and January 2018, were included, resulting in 9051 citations. After excluding duplicates and irrelevant studies, 19 were included in the final review. Two independent reviewers critically appraised the studies. Consequently, accreditation standards in the models were extracted and compared.

Results indicate that USA, Australia, Canada, UK and New Zealand (non-eastern Mediterranean regions (EMR)) and Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon and Egypt (EMR) had well-developed and high-quality PHC accreditation models. The Jordanian, Egyptian and Saudi models had the highest diversity in their PHC standards domains. Community-oriented care, safe care, high-quality care, care continuity and human resource management had the highest priority among PHC accreditation programs.

The authors provide PHC accreditation benchmarks and determine high priority practical domains in accreditation standards. The findings should help health system managers and policymakers design new PHC accreditation programs and promote PHC service quality.

Health systems are changing at variable rates. Periods of significant change can create new challenges or amplify existing barriers to accreditation program credibility and reliability. The purpose of this paper is to examine, during the transition to a new Australian accreditation scheme and standards, challenges to health service accreditation survey reliability, the salience of the issues and strategies to manage threats to survey reliability.

Across 2013-2014, a two-phase, multi-method study was conducted, involving five research activities (two questionnaire surveys and three group discussions). This paper reports data from the transcribed group discussions involving 100 participants, which was subject to content and thematic analysis. Participants were accreditation survey coordinators employed by the Australian Council on Healthcare Standards.

Six significant issues influencing survey reliability were reported: accreditation program governance and philosophy; accrediting agency management of the accreditation process, including the program’s framework; survey coordinators; survey team dynamics; individual surveyors; and healthcare organizations’ approach to accreditation. A change in governance arrangements promoted reliability with an independent authority and a new set of standards, endorsed by Federal and State governments. However, potential reliability threats were introduced by having multiple accrediting agencies approved to survey against the new national standards. Challenges that existed prior to the reformed system remain.

Capturing lessons and challenges from healthcare reforms is necessary if improvements are to be realized. The study provides practical and theoretical strategies to promote reliability in accreditation programs.