AACSB accreditation ensures that accredited business schools provide a high quality product to students, organizations, and society.  The engagement of business school faculty in research and other forms of scholarly inquiry is a key factor in the ability of the school to fulfill its mission and provide value to its constituents. The AACSB Accreditation Standards thus reflect the belief that faculty research is critical to the mission of the business school in two distinct, but related ways:

Institutions of higher education share a common purpose to advance knowledge for the common good.  In business schools, this is achieved both through the education of future researchers and business professionals, as well as through the production of new ideas and knowledge that are relevant to current business practice. Accreditation Standard 2 (Mission Appropriateness) states AACSB expectations regarding the role of intellectual contributions, including learning and pedagogical research, contributions to practice, and discipline-based scholarship, in a business school’s mission fulfillment.

Faculty enable the business school to achieve this mission to advance the knowledge and practice of business and management.  Thus, the ability to remain abreast of, and participate in, new developments in their field of expertise ensures that individual faculty members deliver current, relevant information to their students, and that they actively support the mission of the business school through the production of intellectual contributions. Accreditation Standard 10 (Faculty Qualifications) states AACSB expectations regarding the activities and experiences by which individual faculty members may attain and maintain sufficient qualifications to contribute to the business school mission.

Standard 2:  Mission Appropriateness.  The school’s mission statement is appropriate to higher education for management and consonant with the mission of any institution of which the school is a part.  The mission includes the production of intellectual contributions that advance the knowledge and practice of business and management.

Standard 10:  Faculty Qualifications.  The faculty has, and maintains, intellectual qualifications and current expertise to accomplish the mission and to assure that this occurs, the school has a clearly defined process to evaluate the individual faculty member’s contributions to the school’s mission.

Download the complete AACSB International Eligibility Criteria and Standards for Business Accreditation, adopted April 2003, revised January 2007.