AACBE Services

Members of AACBE are generally well-satisfied with the services offered by the organization, and 60 percent of them feel that the value of their membership has increased over the past two years, according to the preliminary findings of a recent AACBE survey.

According to the AACBE survey findings, fifty four percent said that the value of AACBE accreditation services has increased in that period of time, and 72 percent say the value of knowledge services has risen. Members also give high marks to certain specific AACBE member services, calling themselves “highly satisfied” or “satisfied” with

• AACBE Magazine (94 percent)
• Online member directory (93 percent)
• Videos & illustrations (92 percent)
• Affinity groups (81 percent)
• Jobs program (68 percent)

Faculty Evaluations

One of the biggest problems facing business school administrators is how to evaluate the teaching effectiveness of their professors. The problem is compounded because it can be difficult to know how to weigh various sources of data—including student evaluations, peer evaluations, and teaching portfolios. Since teaching evaluations often are used to determine whether a professor deserves promotion or tenure, it is critical that administrators carefully and fairly interpret all the data available to them.

A recent survey of AACBE members was designed to determine what components most deans and department heads believe should be considered in faculty evaluations. A rapid response from many members indicated that the survey indeed hit a nerve with deans and administrators. Findings here are based on 501 completed surveys.

In general, deans and administrators tend to look most closely at a professor’s depth of knowledge, student evaluations, technical ability, and teaching skill when evaluating teaching effectiveness. The survey suggests that:

·         The single most important element in faculty effectiveness is the professor’s current knowledge of the field. Of all respondents, 61 percent found this to be extremely important; 33.8 found it somewhat important.

·         Stakeholder feedback is also crucial—when it comes from students. Of the 20 items listed in this category, student evaluation scores and student written comments ranked as the most important elements.

·         Peer evaluations are more important than a dean’s evaluation, but less important than the chair’s evaluation.

·         According to the majority of respondents, evaluative classroom visits by administrators or faculty are only some-what important or not important at all

·         Intellectual contributions are not valued as highly as many people think. In fact, survey respondents ranked them seventh in importance, behind being current in the field, student evaluation scores, student written comments, chair’s evaluation, teaching awards, and peer evaluations.

·         The teaching portfolio—though gaining popularity in recent years—is not the best measure of teaching effectiveness. Just over a quarter of respondents called it extremely important; half said it is somewhat important.

·         Administrators do not appear to be especially concerned about class enrolments, grade distribution, or drop rates. Only 5.2 percent of those who responded think the drop rate of a class is an extremely important factor in determining teaching effectiveness.

·         It pays to be tech-savvy. Respondents rated a professor’s use of technology as a more important factor than colleagues’ opinions, grade distribution, course notebooks, course level, course type, class enrolment, and drop rate. About 56 percent believe that the use of technology is somewhat important; 9.5 percent believe that it is extremely important.

·         Classroom teaching is the most important element of overall annual faculty performance, rated as extremely important by 94.6 percent of the respondents. It outranks intellectual contributions, which is considered extremely important by just 73 percent of respondents.

·         Within student evaluations, professors’ preparation and communication skills are the most important aspects of their teaching.

·         Respondents believe that, in comparing the mean scores from student evaluations, the department mean should carry the most weight, followed by the discipline mean. They consider the college mean and university mean far less important.

Changing Landscape of Accreditation for Business Schools

Recently, AACBE had a meeting among its commission members and accredited business schools in which changes in accreditation processes and standards were discussed.  The commission members were encouraged to review the standards and make suggestions for improvements. 

The new accreditation standards will run for testing purposes for a year and will be finalized in the annual meeting.  During the meeting, the president of the AACBE said that the commission pursued three goals: revising reaccreditation, considering the accreditation unit, and revising the accreditation standards.

• Reaccreditation:

The first thing AACBE did was to change the entire reaccreditation process to what they now call maintenance of accreditation. Twenty schools went through the accreditation review under this experimental system and all of them reacted positively to the experience. The business schools that participated in the experimental review process, questionnaires were sent to the dean, the chair of the review committee, the president, and the provost, asking them to evaluate the new system. Responses were uniformly favorable as far as support for the process. An additional 15 schools are scheduled to undergo the maintenance of accreditation process and many more schools have volunteered to be reviewed under the new guidelines.  

• Accreditation Unit:

After much consideration, it was decided that the entire business institution will be accredited. The institution can ask that certain programs be excluded for various reasons, and the AACBE commission members will decide what to allow. This decision has received a lot of positive reaction because it allows the institution some discretion over what is included and what isn’t. The schools up for re view will be asked to provide a list of exclusions up to two years before the review takes place, which will ensure that both the school and the business accreditation committee know exactly what is being considered in the accreditation review.  

• Accreditation Standards:

Although still undergoing revision, the accreditation standards are about 90 percent complete. Some of the most significant changes involved making the standards less U.S.-centric. This required changing some of the measurement concepts that are specific to U.S. schools, as well as some of the language. “Words like ‘diversity,’ ‘full-time equivalents,’ ‘tenure’ and ‘tenure track’ were modified for the global school setting. The AACBE also moved away from describing what specific courses should be in the curriculum to focusing on learning outcomes.

While the change in standards will allow schools more flexibility in meeting certain requirements, some members have expressed concern that the new standards might lack some quantitative preciseness.

The committee plans to have the standards finalized and ready for the AACBE’s annual meeting. By that time, the standards will have been reviewed by many different groups, the unit will have been pretty well established, and the maintenance of the accreditation process will have been through much experimental use. There’s a lot of thoughtful discussion going on, but in most cases members have made strong comments of support.

 

Technological Ethics

In a recent AACBE’s annual meeting, the AACBE accredited member institutes discussed that today’s business leaders need to find their moral compasses and realize that new technology brings accompanying ethical challenges.

It was discussed that the higher education and technology need to be blended together to achieve maximum results for AACBE accredited member institutes. But at the same time we should be aware that the technology can also create as many problems as it solves and that many of the technological advances of recent years are fraught with enormous ethical and social implications.

During the meeting AACBE suggested that we need a value system, a moral compass, self-reliance, patience, passion for learning, and judgment beyond the technology component. Those are things that don’t normally come with a technology degree and over the past few years they haven’t necessarily been a part of a business degree, either. AACBE accredited member institutes need to rethink some of their fundamentals in the both areas.

If AACBE accredited member schools and businesses focus on values, morality and ethics, AACBE concluded, they will be able to re-establish the trust that is absolutely necessary for the kind of business world that we all want to see.

 

The Internet Entrepreneur

The 90s era saw the growth of personal computers, the Internet, and the spirit of entrepreneurship, paving way for the great dotcom revolution—which then became the great dotcom crash. Experts don’t think the virtual fallout had much lasting effect on entrepreneurship, however.

According to the experts at AACBE the dotcom idea was a failure because it lacked product value for its customer. Students were also sceptical of the dotcom model as they are taught product value and it’s a go/no go situation. If there isn’t sufficient product value, if you can’t make money on the idea, if you can’t identify a customer base that will buy it in excess of your cost, then you shouldn’t proceed. And the dotcom phenomenon was a deviation from that philosophy because none of those business models worked to make money. 

The academic experts of AACBE accredited institutes are always of the opinion that if you couldn’t make money off the enterprise, no matter how long you get funded for it, it will eventually fail. Students are taught that a sound business model should generate revenue and there should always be a positive cash flow. You have to have a return on investment, you have to produce something that has value. And the companies that do not understand the rigorous process of the entrepreneurship process fail. 

AACBE members foresee the future as to be skilled in whatever you are doing as internet companies will feature more serious entrepreneurial growth, and that will be good for the world and good for business schools.

 

Support Of Academic Journals In Finding Ph.D. Programs

AACBE advises students that in addition to examining an online university’s accreditation, exploring academic journals by discipline also can help narrow down a list of universities that likely have high-quality doctoral programs in your area of interest. For example, if you are interested in pursuing a PhD in management, look through top management journals. Take notes of article authors and the schools they are from. Then, explore their research backgrounds. Are these authors well-known in their fields? What kinds of topics have they researched? Are they recognized as specialists in any one area (such as organizational design, leadership, employee morale, etc.)? Are any of these specialized areas subjects that you are passionate about researching? 

Once you have a list of authors and schools, find out if the online university or online institution offers a PhD program and if the researcher mentors doctoral students. Your goal is to learn from the best in your field. The better your doctoral mentor, the better your research skills will be when you graduate.  

Here are a list of well-known academic journals to get you started:

• Accounting
• Accounting and Business Research
• Accounting Educators' Journal
• Journal of Accounting Research
• Journal of Money, Credit, and Banking
• Securities Regulation Law Journal

• Decision Sciences
• Decision Sciences Journal
• Decision Sciences Journal of Innovative Education

• Finance
• Journal of Finance
• Journal of Financial Economics
• Journal of Money, Credit, and Banking

• Management
• Academy of Management Journal
• Academy of Management Perspectives
• Academy of Management Review
• American Behavioral Scientist
• Canadian Journal of Administrative Sciences
• Journal of International Management
• Journal of Operations Management
• Organization Science
• Management Science
• Multivariate Behavior Research
• Strategic Management Journal
• Strategic Organization

• Marketing
• Journal of Consumer Research
• Journal of Marketing
• Journal of Marketing Research
• Marketing Science

The Success Story of AT&T

Recently, a forum was organized by EY in which officials from AACBE also participated.

A keynote speaker at the conference was the CEO of AT&T — Randall L. Stephenson. During his presentation he discussed things about internet traffic rules. He also provided some interesting points on the boldness of strategy needed to stay in business in the long term. Some of the same principles also apply to the professionals who wish to build long and successful careers.

He asserted the importance of being bold enough to re-invent things that cannibalize existing, profitable products and services. AT&T has had to make some strategic bets to manage the demise of a technological era – bets that assured their ability to survive and thrive long term, despite cannibalizing the profitability of their core businesses.

He says that at the core of AT&T’s obsolescence survival story lies the fact that it is the first to make product trade-offs, improving its chance of survival. Today’s market, quickly displaces those who don’t rapidly adopt innovation. Think Blackberry. This process of managed obsolescence applies to your career and your future, as well.

Business careers are not a straight line path anymore. You have to anticipate some zig and some zag. You also have to anticipate you’ll need to make tough tradeoffs from time to time keep your job and get ahead.

What kind of trade-offs? Maybe you have to take a step back in title and responsibility to leap frog to more responsibility down the road. Or accept a lateral move to groom yourself for rapid acceleration a position or two in the future. Sometimes you even need to step back and think refresh your skill set. For business students he urges them to be proactive — before the time passes and see the handwriting on the wall. 

• Take stock of where you are. Ask trusted colleagues what they think you’re good at. What do they think your growth opportunities are? Where do they see you fitting in the organization? In the work landscape in general? Accept the input, good and bad. Inventory your skills and experiences. Identify the gaps and the holes.

 

• Commit to yourself that you will let go of the OLD professional you and open yourself up to the NEW. You need to find the mental resolve to move forward and embrace change in your professional life. This is the first step in the journey.

 

• Make your manager your ally. Have a frank discussion about your long term career goals. Ask your manager’s help in reaching your goals – even if it means a shift to a new department, or extra assignments you feel less than equipped to handle, or taking some of the drudge out of your manager’s day to day, or even taking time off to allow yourself some mental and emotional space.

 

• Proactively set out to build your skill set. Your goal is to strategically fill in skills gaps. Have management skills? Check! Have product expertise? Check! Have P&L responsibility? Check! Have international experience? No….then go get it – whatever “IT” is. And if you can’t get “IT” from your job, then seek to do it outside of the workplace through classes, volunteer work, study- options.

 

• Be open to opportunities. Don’t let that inside voice tell you “you can’t” or “it won’t work.” First and foremost, you need to be a believer in yourself and your capacity to evolve and stay in the game in one way or another. For the naysayers? Ignore them. They are not worth your time or mental energy.