This week, the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB International) approved new accreditation standards allowing business schools to have more innovative flexibility.
AACSB International currently accredits 672 post-secondary institutions across the globe. As more and more business schools are being established around the world, institutions are seeking AACSB International accreditation to assure prospective students of their quality.
For their part, AACSB International is reshaping their accreditation regulations to suit the needs of this growing number of institutions.
“Flexibility doesn’t mean easier,” Jan R. Williams, former dean of the University of Tennessee at Knoxville’s College of Business Administration, said in a webcast this week that described the new standards. “It simply means the standards are more adaptable to schools in different countries with different cultures.”
The new accreditation standards aim to ensure that business schools are meeting the needs of today’s students and organizations by focusing on three strategic concepts: innovation, impact and engagement.
It is expected that the improved standards will try to measure the influence that given business schools have on graduates and the community. This will require accurately monitoring and tracking graduation rates, job placements and faculty research.
In addition to keeping track of the metrics, the new standards are intended to expand the mission of business schools that allows better exploration of the variations among each institution and to encourage better integration of academic research and practice.
