AACSB 2003 accreditation standards: impact on continuous quality improvement

Abstract

The strategic goal of accreditation by AACSB International remains continuous quality improvement in the content, in all aspects of the delivery and in the administration of management education. This paper explores the impact of the new AACSB accreditation standards on this goal. These standards, approved in 2003, were intended to reflect a philosophical shift from ''mission-centric'' to ''improvement-centric''. Based on our analysis, we conclude that the new standards fall short of their strategic objective of supporting continuous improvement in management education because many are not process-based. In this paper, we propose an ''integrated framework of business performance measurement'' (IFBPM) approach to better align the 2003 standards with AACSB's goal of continuous quality improvement of management education. We provide a set of IFBPM guidelines for revising the standards so that they are truly process-based, thus supporting ongoing continuous quality improvement of management education.