Why won’t AACSB International require a course in ethics for all business programs?

Ethics education is called for in the general knowledge and skills portion of the AACSB accreditation standards for undergraduates, and in the management-specific portion of the standards for undergraduate and master’s students. However, there is no implication in the standards that designate particular courses or treatments. Schools should assume great flexibility in fashioning curricula to meet their missions and to fit with the specific circumstances of particular programs. For example, ethics may be grouped with other topics to integrate learning or call for special pedagogical treatment. Schools are expected to determine how ethics and topics occur in the learning experiences of students, but accreditation does not mandate any particular set of courses, nor is a prescribed pattern or order intended. The school must justify how curricular contents and structure meet the needs of the mission of the school and the learning goals for each degree program.

Some management educators have questioned AACSB’s approach to achieving quality in ethics education. The reasons for AACSB’s approach are described below.

Philosophical. AACSB International has never in its history (established in 1916) required a course in any topic. As an accreditor, AACSB has always required the inclusion of certain topics in curricula, but it has not told schools that those topics must be included in any specific structural or pedagogic manner. AACSB believes it is imperative to recognize the importance of certain topics by insisting that they be included in business education programs, but it also believes that it is best left to the school to fit those topics into the learning programs in ways best suited to the structure and pedagogy of the school. Ethics is one of those topics that have long been included in the essential requirements of AACSB International.

Practical. Mandating a course requirement would require spelling out exactly what constitutes a course. But what is a course? In a student credit hour system, would a three credit per semester course be sufficient? What about a three credit per quarter course? Would a one-credit course be enough? Suppose a school provides a non-credit two week intensive pre-MBA program in quantitative methods and ethics—would that work? Because there are too many variations of how material might be presented or learned, mandating a course requirement will lead to a regulatory nightmare—the antithesis of the tone and procedure of AACSB International accreditation. Higher education delivery is becoming much more heterogeneous. Integrated subject matter in super-courses, modular delivery of programs, self-paced learning environments, technology-based distance delivery, and other innovations are adding an increasing number of alternatives to the traditional course-block method of structuring curricula. Accreditation should not be a barrier to such innovation, and any course-based standards would imply such a barrier.

Focus on Learning. The focus of current higher education is turning to learning, not teaching.  What students have learned, as exemplified in AACSB International accreditation’s new Assurance of Learning standards, is displacing a focus on how a subject is taught.  Insisting that ethics education be organized into a single course switches the focus back to the teaching side of the equation.  It focuses on what the school is doing, rather than on what the student is learning.  AACSB believes that would be a step backward.