FACULTY INTELLECTUAL CONTRIBUTIONS UNDER THE 2009 AACSB INTERNATIONAL ACCREDITATION STANDARDS

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1 FACULTY INTELLECTUAL CONTRIBUTIONS UNDER THE 2009 AACSB INTERNATIONAL ACCREDITATION STANDARDS Spritzer, Allan D. East Tennessee State University Garceau, Linda R. East Tennessee State University ABSTRACT AACSB International-The Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business is the premiere accreditation agency worldwide for undergraduate and graduate programs in business administration. Its rigorous standards require business schools to demonstrate high quality and continuous improvement in their endeavors, including faculty research, publication and other forms of intellectual contributions. Several major changes in the accreditation standards that deal with faculty scholarship have occurred during the past five decades. These changes have attempted to respond to criticisms of the kinds and quality of research produced by business schools and to criticisms of the AACSB standards, themselves. The current accreditation standards were adopted in Feedback from several sources during the past five years has led to proposed changes in the standards and the interpretive materials that guide the schools and reviewers involved in accreditation processes. A number of these changes address faculty intellectual contributions, their role in the assessment of faculty qualifications and their impact on the practice of business administration. Final action on the proposed standards changes will take place in April 2009 at AACSB International s Annual Meeting. This paper discusses the evolution of the accreditation standards related to faculty research. It then analyzes the proposed changes in the standards and their interpretations relative to faculty intellectual contributions. It explores the extent to which expectations for business faculty scholarship and publication may be altered, and it considers the likely impact of the changes upon faculty members, business schools and accreditation peer review teams. INTRODUCTION AACSB International - The Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business is an association primarily comprised of educational institutions devoted to the pursuit of high quality and continuous improvement in education for business. Its mission is to advance quality management education worldwide through accreditation and thought leadership. ( It is the premiere accreditation agency worldwide for undergraduate and graduate programs in business administration and accounting. Schools that aspire to achieve initial AACSB accreditation and those that seek to maintain existing accreditation status are required to meet rigorous standards. The standards call for overall high quality and continuous improvement in all aspects of a school s business programs. AACSB accreditation is a prestigious hallmark for those schools that have achieved this distinction. Important components of the standards are those related to faculty scholarship, research, publication and other forms of intellectual contributions. AACSB accreditation expectations for faculty scholarship have changed over the past fifty years. These changes have responded to the need to: (1) improve the

2 credibility and prestige of business schools in higher education and in the non-academic business and management arenas; (2) better relate business school research and faculty scholarship to individual institutional educational and service missions; (3) respond to changes in the structure, program diversity and global nature of higher education in business and management; (4) provide realistic opportunities for all eligible collegiate business schools and programs to seek and obtain AACSB accreditation; and (5) provide AACSB International with accredited membership growth opportunities and institutional advancement as an association representing the interests of higher education in business and management, worldwide. The current AACSB business accreditation standards were approved in April 2003 by a vote of the AACSB International Accreditation Council comprised of all accredited member schools. In October 2008, in pursuit of its own principles of fostering overall high quality and continuous improvement, AACSB released an Exposure Draft for Comment. This document includes proposed changes in the business accreditation standards and interpretive guidelines. (AACSB International, 2008a) The proposed changes are in response to feedback from peer review teams, AACSB accreditation committees, business school leaders and others. A number of the proposed changes relate to faculty intellectual contributions. They reflect, in part, the report and recommendations of AACSB s Impact of Research Task Force that was charged in 2006 with recommending ways to increase the overall value and visibility of business school research. (AACSB International, 2008b) The proposed changes in the standards and their interpretive guideline statements, subject to modification and approval by the AACSB Accreditation Quality Committee and the AACSB International Board of Directors, will be voted upon by the membership of the Accreditation Council at AACSB International s Annual Business Meeting to be held in Orlando, Florida in April This paper will review the evolution of AACSB standards dealing with faculty research, publication and other forms of intellectual contributions. It will discuss and analyze the provisions of the proposed changes in the standards and interpretive guidelines that relate to intellectual contributions, and it will consider the potential impact on business schools and their faculty should the proposed changes be adopted in April Questions that will be addressed in this paper include: What has been the role and significance of faculty research and scholarship in AACSB business accreditation over the years? What factors have influenced the 2009 changes to the business accreditation standards and their interpretive guidelines? To what extent, if any, will the expectations and requirements for faculty intellectual contributions be altered by the proposed changes? What impact will the changes have upon schools seeking initial accreditation or maintenance of accreditation? How will they affect accreditation peer review teams? The co-authors of this paper have served as business dean at their institution for eighteen and nine years, respectively. Each has successfully led the school through AACSB accreditation reviews. Each has served on AACSB operating committees responsible for accreditation processes. Each has served on a number of peer review teams and as mentors and advisors to schools seeking initial AACSB accreditation or maintenance of accreditation. BACKGROUND Founded in 1916, AACSB s first standards for business accreditation were adopted three years later by its seventeen founding members. Represented were six Ivy League institutions, four Big Ten universities and several other prestigious schools that today continue to be recognized for their academic excellence and doctoral research programs.

3 Concerns over the poor quality of higher education for business during the 1950 s led to studies by the Ford Foundation and the Carnegie Foundation. Each concluded in 1959 that much work needed to be accomplished in order to raise the prestige of collegiate level business schools from their perceived status as trade schools to more academic and scholarly entities, similar to their sister units on campus in the sciences and social sciences. (Gordon and Howell, 1959 and Pierson, 1959). Gordon and Howell, for example, stated that, Business schools need to develop both more pure or fundamental research and, using the best tools now available, more applied research at a high analytical level. (p. 382) During the ensuing decades, AACSB addressed these conclusions by encouraging its membership to pursue a significantly enhanced academic reputation for the schools of business. With many non-doctoral business schools seeking academic credibility through accreditation, the need for quality improvement was reflected in AACSB accreditation policies and standards by placing heavy emphasis on the importance of research that leads to the creation of knowledge, the expansion of the frontiers of knowledge and the subsequent production of high quality peer reviewed journal publications consistent with the doctoral school model. (Spritzer and Billings, 2005, p. 47) This standard for research was applicable to all schools, irrespective of educational mission. Thus, schools offering undergraduate only or a mix of baccalaureate and master s programs were essentially expected to emulate the research profiles of schools offering research-oriented doctoral degrees in business. Many small and non-doctoral schools lacked the research mission or resources associated with the doctoral research model. As a result, their pursuit of AACSB accreditation was impeded by the research expectations of the accreditation standards. The observation has been made that, When business schools seek academic prestige, they emphasize empirical research and theory-building which is published in refereed journals and which is most often not directly and obviously relevant to working managers. On the other hand, when professional schools seek relevance with practitioners, their work often remains unpublished or it finds its way into unrefereed journals which are not esteemed in the academy. (McKenna, et al.,1993) By the late 1980 s and early 1990 s, AACSB s outlook on research began to change. This change was influenced by three major developments. First, in 1988 the report of a three year study commissioned by AACSB on the future of management education in higher education gave extensive consideration to the role of research and scholarship in business schools over the years since the Ford and Carnegie Foundation reports in (Porter and McKibben, 1988) In their study, Porter and McKibbin gave extensive consideration to criticisms of the increased emphasis placed on research by business schools. These criticisms were grouped into three overall categories: (1) quantity of research had become more important to business schools than quality; (2) the intended audience of most business school research was the academic community rather than the combined professional community of scholars and practitioners; and (3) due to the first two tendencies, there was a proliferation of arcane, trivial and irrelevant research. (p. 166) In general, much of the Porter-McKibbin report s commentary gave credence to the criticisms. They observed that faculty research was being pushed in the business schools not because it was central to the schools educational objectives, but only because it was perceived as necessary to meet AACSB accreditation standards. They raised the question of whether it would be possible and desirable to recast the research component of the standards in a way that would motivate schools to engage in scholarly activities more directly appropriate to their mission. (p. 176) They concluded by stating that they believed that it is incumbent on deans and faculty members everywhere to address the issue of how to increase the impact of business school research on the practicing profession. (p. 180)

4 The second influence that led to changes in AACSB s standards for accreditation was the establishment in 1988 of a rival organization for business accreditation. ACBSP, the Association of Collegiate Business Schools and Programs, welcomed into membership business schools and programs whose educational missions focused primarily on teaching, with little or no expectations for faculty research and publication. Some of these ACBSP members were not eligible for AACSB accreditation which, at the time, was only available to business colleges or schools reporting directly to the central administration and was not available to divisions or departments of business housed within other academic units. Some ACBSP members were interested in AACSB accreditation, but faculty research expectations hindered their aspirations. A third influence on standards changes arrived two years later when the Carnegie Foundation issued a study, Scholarship Reconsidered: Priorities of the Professorate. (Boyer, 1990) This report proposed that higher education institutions need a broader approach to the range of desired faculty scholarship. It suggested that in addition to the scholarship of discovery, faculty members should also be encouraged to engage in other forms of research appropriate to the school s mission and society s needs, including the scholarship of teaching and the scholarship of application. (pp ) The latter two categories give added value to research and publication associated with the teaching and service missions of higher education. THE 1991 ACCREDITATION STANDARDS In 1991, major changes in AACSB s accreditation standards were made in response to the above influences as well as others. Several changes were made in the standards related to faculty scholarship. (Spritzer and Billings, 2005, pp and AACSB, 2001) The term research was virtually eliminated throughout the standards and replaced by the term, intellectual contributions. A separate and distinctive standard for Intellectual Contributions was added. (AACSB 2001, pp ) In its preamble, this standard articulated the view that, Producing intellectual contributions represents a core set of responsibilities of higher education for business. The Intellectual Contributions standard stated that, Faculty members should make intellectual contributions on a continuing basis appropriate to the school s mission. It indicated that, The outputs from intellectual contributions should be available for public scrutiny by academic peers or practitioners. Intellectual contributions were categorized in the standard s interpretive statements as Basic Scholarship, Applied Scholarship and Instructional Development to closely reflect Boyer s groupings. The range of acceptable outlets for faculty intellectual contributions was considerably broadened to include publications in refereed journals (academic, professional and pedagogical), research monographs, scholarly books, chapters in scholarly books, textbooks, proceedings from scholarly meetings, papers presented at academic or professional meetings, publicly available research working papers, papers presented at faculty research seminars, publications in trade journals, inhouse journals, book reviews, written cases with instructional materials, instructional software, and other publicly available materials describing the design and implementation of new curricula or courses. (p.29)

5 Also in 1991, several provisions of a new standard on Faculty Composition and Development affirmed the importance of intellectual contributions as a factor influencing determination of the academic qualifications of the faculty. (AACSB, 2001, pp.13-15) Standard FD.5, Faculty Qualifications, stated that, The faculty, in aggregate, should have sufficient academic and professional qualifications to accomplish the school s mission. Academic qualification was defined in the interpretive guidance for the standard to require a combination of original academic preparation (i.e., degree completion) augmented by subsequent activities that maintain or establish preparation for current teaching responsibilities. The Basis for Judgment under this standard warned that classification as academically or professionally qualified may be lost if there is no evidence of faculty development, intellectual contributions, or current professional experience relevant to the teaching field within the five year period preceding the accreditation review. (AACSB 2001, p. 15) Promulgation of the range of outlets for faculty intellectual contributions appeared to make it clear that scholarly activity other than peer reviewed publication in refereed journals is appropriate for schools seeking AACSB accreditation, consistent with the diversity of missions among AACSB member schools. The link between a school s educational mission and its intellectual contributions emphasis was illustrated in the 1991 standards in the Basis for Judgment guidelines published under the Intellectual Contributions standard. Here it was required that in its mission statement, a school must include an explicit commitment to intellectual contributions. Further, it was stated that the concentration and distribution of faculty intellectual activities should be consistent with the school s mission statement and documents used by the school to describe itself to interested constituencies. For example, the guidelines for accreditation applicants and peer review teams stated that schools with a strong commitment to doctoral education should have a substantial emphasis on basic scholarship. Schools with a predominant emphasis on undergraduate degree programs might have the emphasis of their intellectual contributions in instructional development and applied scholarship. Schools with a mix of undergraduate and graduate programs but without doctoral programs may have a balance among basic scholarship, applied scholarship and instructional development. (pp ) The 1991 standards also changed the eligibility requirements for accreditation. Under the previous standards, AACSB accreditation was available only to business units that reported directly to the central administration. In the 1991 standards, accreditation became available to departments and divisions that offered business administration degree programs within broader based academic units, i.e., colleges and schools. This change was clearly an effort to respond to the competition for membership from the rival association, ACBSP. In addition, the 1991 standards created new procedures to assist unaccredited schools interested in becoming accredited. An AACSB Candidacy Program was launched to provide advice and guidance for schools seeking to embark on the journey toward initial accreditation. This program required that schools eligible for accreditation develop and implement an accreditation plan based upon their self-assessment of strengths and weaknesses that need to be addressed in order to achieve the school s mission and in order to meet the expectations of the accreditation standards, including those for faculty intellectual contributions. These changes in the 1991 standards and the supportive new processes and interpretive guidelines published with the standards opened the accreditation door for many institutions that offer business degree programs. Many, if not most of these, are small, non-doctoral schools whose primary mission

6 emphases are teaching and service to the business community; not scholarly research and publication. Between the end of the 1980 s and the beginning of the 2000 s, the number of AACSB accredited schools increased from under 300 to over 400. (Spritzer and Billings, 2005, p. 52) The apparent liberalization of research expectations under the 1991 standards produced some interesting commentary, some of which expressed the view that too much emphasis was still being placed on faculty research and refereed journal publication and not enough emphasis was being placed on the effective delivery of instruction. (See Cotton, et al., 1993; Ehie and Karathanos, 1994; Henninger, 1998; Yunker, 2000; Jantzen, 2000; and Martz, et al., 2001) In 2001, AACSB established a Blue Ribbon Committee on Accreditation Quality. This committee was asked to suggest improvements for the accreditation standards. Extensive discussions by the Blue Ribbon Committee, with inputs from the membership and others, led to changes in the business accreditation standards. The changes were approved by a vote of the AACSB Accreditation Council at the association s annual meeting in April THE 2003 ACCREDITATION STANDARDS The 2003 business accreditation standards eliminated the single Intellectual Contributions standard. Instead, accreditation expectations related to faculty scholarship and intellectual contributions were integrated throughout the standards. This change may have been a way of saying that the AACSB leadership and membership see faculty scholarship as a means of supporting overall high quality and faculty academic qualifications rather than as an end in and of itself. It was also a way of saying that other aspects of the management of business schools needed to be given more attention. Thus, the 2003 standards gave prominence to new standards related to strategic planning processes and to the development, delivery and assessment of instruction. The 21 standards for business accreditation established in 2003 are grouped into 3 major categories: Strategic Management Standards (Standards 1-5), Participants Standards (Standards 6-14), and Assurance of Learning Standards (Standards 15-21). This basic structure is still in place and will continue under the proposed 2009 changes in the standards. The business accreditation standards themselves have been unchanged since 2003 and they continue to serve as the current standards. The interpretive guidelines included with the standards have undergone some revision in January of each year. They provide guidance for the schools, for the peer review teams and for the AACSB operating accreditation committees that manage and oversee accreditation processes. The current document containing the 2003 standards and their updated interpretations for business accreditation, as revised on January 31, 2008, can be found online at the AACSB website. (AACSB International, 2008c) Provisions of the current standards and their interpretations relevant to faculty intellectual contributions include the following: Standard 2, Mission Appropriateness, requires that the mission of each business school must include the production of intellectual contributions that advances the knowledge and practice of business and management. (p. 21) The categories of basic scholarship, applied scholarship, and instructional development established in the 1991 standards are replaced with discipline based scholarship, contributions to practice, and learning and pedagogical research.

7 Individual faculty scholarship should emphasize one or more of the above categories, dependent upon the mission emphasis of the school. Generally, faculty intellectual contributions should meet two tests. First, they should exist in public written form. Second, they should be subject to scrutiny by academic peers or practitioners prior to publication. Schools should have clear policies that state expectations to guide faculty in the successful production of a portfolio of intellectual contributions that is consistent with the school s mission. A school s policies that guide the development of intellectual contributions should clearly specify: The expected targets or outcomes of the research activity; The priority and value of different forms of intellectual contributions, consistent with the school s mission and strategic management processes; Clear expectations regarding quality of the intellectual contributions and how quality is assured (e.g., specific target journals or outlets, selectivity requirements, etc.); The quantity and frequency of outcomes expected over the five-year accreditation review period; Guidance to ensure that intellectual contributions are produced by a substantial crosssection of the faculty in each discipline, consistent with the school s mission. (p. 24) The interpretive guidelines under Standard 2 also specify that the portfolio of intellectual contributions is expected to include a significant proportion of peer reviewed journal articles and/or scholarly books, research monographs, or sections/chapters of such publications that are subject to a peer review process, defined as a process of independent review prior to publication of a faculty member s work by an editorial board/committee widely acknowledged as possessing expertise in the field. (p. 25) Standard 5, Financial Strategies, and its interpretive guidelines require that the school has financial strategies to provide the resources and infrastructure needed for achieving its mission and action items, including faculty research. These should include facilities such as faculty offices and computer equipment, and faculty development opportunities, such as sabbatical leaves and professional travel. Standard 9, Faculty Sufficiency, requires that a school maintains a faculty that is sufficient to provide stability and ongoing improvement for the instructional programs offered. The implication for faculty intellectual contributions is contained in the interpretive statement that, Each school recruits, develops and maintains a faculty to accomplish its mission with respect to learning, practice and scholarship. (AACSB International, 2008c, p. 36) Standard 10, Faculty Qualifications, requires that a school s faculty has and maintains intellectual qualifications and current expertise to accomplish the mission, and to assure that this occurs the school must have a clearly defined process to evaluate individual faculty member contributions to the school s mission. The interpretive guidelines for Standard 10 depart from the 1991 standards in its definition of a doctoral degree appropriate for faculty academic qualifications. Beginning with the 2003 standards, doctoral degree means completion of a research doctorate, a degree program

8 intended to produce scholars capable of creating original scholarly contributions through advances in research or theory. (p. 44) In addition, the Standard 10 interpretations state, Since the intent of academic qualifications is to assure that faculty members have research competence in their primary field of teaching, the existence of a current research record in the teaching field will be accepted as prima facie evidence of academic qualifications, regardless of credentials. (p. 44) Finally, the statement regarding loss of faculty qualifications was modified to indicate that, Classification as academically or professionally qualified may be lost if there is inadequate evidence of contributions in the last five years through learning and pedagogical research, contributions to practice, or discipline-based scholarship. (p. 46) To assist with the collection, reporting and evaluation of faculty qualifications, the 2003 standards have included, in the interpretive guideline materials, a table for the schools to complete. This table, Table 10-1 (p. 50), presents a summary of individual faculty member academic qualifications and intellectual contributions, by discipline, during the five years prior to accreditation review. Noteworthy is that for each of the three categories of intellectual contributions, totals in the current Table 10-1 are reported for peer reviewed journals (PRJ) and other intellectual contributions (OIC). In Footnote 5 of this table, a listing of the range of forms and outlets for OIC s is provided. According to Footnote 5, OIC s can include, but are not limited to: research monographs, scholarly books, chapters in scholarly books, textbooks, proceedings from scholarly meetings, papers presented at academic or professional meetings, publicly available research working papers, papers presented at faculty research seminars, publications in trade journals, in-house journals, book reviews, written cases with instructional materials, instructional software and other publicly available materials describing the design and implementation of new curricula or courses. This footnote goes on to indicate that, generally, intellectual contributions will exist in a publicly written form and will be available for scrutiny by academic peers and professionals, i.e., proprietary and confidential research and consulting reports do not qualify as intellectual contributions. (Emphasis added.) Analysis of faculty scholarship requirements under the current 2003 accreditation standards makes it clear that despite the elimination of an Intellectual Contributions standard, the need to produce quality research and publication has not been diminished or abandoned. (Spritzer and Billings, 2005, p. 53) Efforts to more closely link scholarship to business school educational missions have continued. Individual schools, for example, have been asked by peer review teams to develop and report on the intellectual contributions expectations, related to their mission, for faculty to achieve and retain academically qualified status and for faculty promotion, tenure and other rewards. The liberalization of the range of acceptable outlets for the presentation and publication of scholarly work has moved schools and accreditation reviews away from the doctoral research model that characterized AACSB accreditation expectations before the 1991 standards were introduced. Yet, the interpretations and guidelines to the standards that AACSB has provided, and the perspectives that some peer review teams apply in their assessment of faculty intellectual contributions, continue to place greater importance on the publication of peer reviewed journal articles, irrespective of the mission diversity and research emphases of different kinds of schools. This can be illustrated by the current Table 10-1 which requires reporting of the number of PRJ articles produced by individual faculty members and disciplines, but does not provide for a disaggregation of the OIC s according to form or outlet. This approach seems to suggest that if faculty scholarship does not appear in a peer reviewed journal, it can t

9 be high quality. And it suggests that it doesn t matter if an intellectual contribution is an article in a highly regarded non-refereed professional journal (e.g., the Harvard Business Review), a scholarly textbook or a working paper presented at a departmental brown bag seminar, if it is not a PRJ, it has low value. Some peer review teams have asked schools to produce a listing of refereed journals in which faculty have published during the five-year period preceding accreditation review. And some peer review teams have asked schools to provide further differentiation of the OIC s to reflect the quantity and quality of the different categories of intellectual contributions. These two reporting requests are included in the proposed changes in the accreditation standards and guidelines for Business schools, AACSB and the deans who serve on peer review teams and AACSB accreditation operating committees have sought to balance sometimes conflicting objectives. First, there is the desire to encourage as many schools as possible, irrespective of their diverse missions and resources, to seek accreditation by achieving high quality and continuous improvement through self-evaluation and peer review. Second, there is the desire to improve the image and prestige of business schools by fostering and requiring of all schools evidence of high quality scholarship; particularly scholarship that leads to peer reviewed journal publication. In our view, the business accreditation processes that have evolved under the 1991 and 2003 standards have accommodated within reason these two objectives. Progress with regard to the first can be illustrated by the growth in the number of AACSB-accredited business programs, worldwide, during the past two decades. In 1988, a total of 260 schools were accredited by AACSB. (Spritzer and Billings, 2005, p. 48) At the time of this writing in the fall of 2008 a total of 555 schools in 35 countries hold AACSB business accreditation. Of these, 169 schools in 4 countries have achieved separate accounting accreditation. (Trapnell, 2008) Progress with regard to the second objective will be discussed in the next section of this paper. THE IMPACT OF FACULTY RESEARCH In essence, as schools and AACSB seek high quality and continuous improvement for business programs, faculty scholarship has continued to be an important criterion for the measurement of quality. One reason that research and publication may be of such importance is that it is easier to quantify, measure and evaluate the outputs of faculty scholarship than it is to quantify, measure and evaluate the quality of teaching. Some tests of intellectual contribution quality include the form and/or the forum in which research results are presented. Refereed or peer reviewed journal publications are generally more impressive than publication in non-refereed or practitioner journals. Papers published in the proceedings of academic associations are generally viewed as a lesser degree of quality than peer reviewed journal articles but of higher quality than unpublished papers, working papers or presentations without papers. Ratings of journals by faculty and others are sometimes used to differentiate the quality of published research within disciplines. Another test of research quality is its impact on the academic discipline, on public policy or on business practices. Porter and McKibbin in 1988 assessed business school research over the decades since the 1959 Ford Foundation and Carnegie Foundation reports on business education. Their conclusion was that they did not believe that business schools, for the most part, have a strong basis for developing selfcongratulatory feelings about the quality of their research programs. (p. 179) They added, however, that overall, It seems that the quality of business school research has moved out of the position of being an object of derision but has not yet moved into a position of being the focus of unstinting respect.

10 Porter and McKibbin asked the question, What is the impact of business school research on the practice of business and management? The answer, based upon their study was, Not much. (p. 180) They concluded their chapter on research and scholarship by stating that regardless of the true state of affairs, they believe that it is incumbent upon deans and faculty members everywhere to address the issue of how to increase the impact of business school research on the practicing profession. In 2006, AACSB International established a task force to study the impact of business faculty research. The Impact of Research Task Force was chaired by Dean Joe Alutto of Ohio State University. The task force was asked to recommend ways to increase the overall value and visibility of business school research. In August 2007, the task force issued for comment the initial draft of its report. After extensive discussion and debate among business school deans and administrators, faculty and others, a final report was issued in February (AACSB International, 2008b) The task force report recognized the growing commitment to scholarship among business schools, which has brought increased credibility in academia. It reaffirmed that engaging in rigorous basic research in business and management is an important role that schools of business are uniquely positioned to fill, and it concluded that through research business schools have advanced the knowledge and practice of business and management. (p. 4) These statements are not surprising, given the fact that 11 of the task force s members were deans, former deans or senior faculty members at schools that offer research doctoral degrees in business. In contrast, the task force identified several issues that need to be addressed by AACSB and its member schools, if business school research is to meet its fullest potential. First, the task force reported that there is inadequate focus on the value of the outcomes of faculty research and its impact on intended audiences. Second, business school and individual faculty incentives tend to create an overwhelming emphasis on discipline-based scholarship at the expense of contributions to practice and to pedagogical development. Third, the relationships between business research and teaching are not well-understood. Fourth, there are inadequate channels for translating academic research to impact practice. And fifth, opportunities to support deeper, more continuous interaction between faculty and practicing managers on questions of relevance have not been fully developed. (p. 29) The task force report made several recommendations to address these issues. They began with the recommendation that: (1) AACSB International should extend and augment its accreditation guidelines to require schools to demonstrate the impact of faculty intellectual contributions on targeted audiences. This, said the task force, would require schools to make their case for a mission-oriented portfolio of intellectual contributions by going beyond counting refereed journal articles and other contributions (inputs) to demonstrate the impact of scholarship of all types (outcomes) on various audiences important to business schools. (p.30) Under this approach, simply being involved in scholarship is not sufficient. Even if outputs are created, added the task force, that alone is not sufficient as the outputs should have high-quality impact. (p. 33) Given the composition of the task force membership, it is interesting that such a group, largely representative of high quality doctoral research institutions, observed that, Measures of quality are never quite perfect and, in the case of scholarship, nothing could be less satisfactory than limiting assessments to counting refereed journal articles. (p. 34) Other task force recommendations suggest that: (2) AACSB should encourage and support efforts to create incentives for greater diversity in institutional missions and faculty intellectual contributions; (3) AACSB should support, perhaps in conjunction with professional associations such as the Academy of Management, studies examining the linkage between scholarly inquiry and education in degree and nondegree programs; (4) AACSB should develop an awards program to recognize and publicize high-impact

11 research by faculty; (5) AACSB should develop mechanisms to strengthen interaction between academics and practicing managers in the production of knowledge in areas of greatest interest; (6) AACSB should study and make recommendations to the business and management journal community designed to highlight the impact of faculty research; and (7) AACSB should identify and disseminate information about best practices for creating linkages between academic research and practice. (pp ) THE PROPOSED 2009 AACSB ACCREDITATION STANDARDS In October 2008, the AACSB Accreditation Quality Committee (AQC) developed an exposure draft containing proposed modifications in the association s business accreditation standards and their accompanying interpretive guidelines. (AACSB International, 2008a) The proposed changes were in response to inputs, feedback and recommendations from peer review teams, AACSB accreditation operating committees, business school leaders and others. The proposed changes were also influenced by the discussions and recommendations of the AACSB Impact of Research Task Force. Subject to further modification by the AQC and approval by the AACSB International Board of Directors, the proposed changes will be voted upon by the AACSB Accreditation Council in April 2009 at the Association s annual meeting. A summary by the AACSB accreditation staff of the proposed changes in the standards may be viewed online at the AACSB website. (AACSB International, 2008d) A summary of the proposed changes to the interpretive materials supporting the standards may also be viewed online in a separate document. (AACSB International, 2008e) The latter changes require AQC approval only, but they cannot be fully implemented without a vote to approve the standards changes by the Accreditation Council at the AACSB International 2009 Annual Meeting. A number of the proposed 2009 changes involve faculty intellectual contributions. The results of these changes are several-fold. First, they give increased prominence to the importance of mission-based faculty scholarship and intellectual contributions. Second, they reinforce the desire for high quality research and publication. Third, they continue to encourage faculty to engage in a wide range of forms and outlets for faculty scholarship. Fourth, they provide an opportunity for schools to make the case that the results of non-peer reviewed research can meet the quality test of intellectual contribution acceptability. Fifth, they introduce into the reporting process the expectation that individual faculty members and business schools should document the value and impact of their intellectual contributions. The proposed 2009 changes most directly affect two of the business accreditation standards and their interpretive guidelines. Those most affected are Standard 2, Mission Appropriateness and Standard 10, Faculty Qualifications. Standard 2 considers the total portfolio of faculty intellectual contributions and its relationship to the mission of the entity seeking accreditation. Standard 10 focuses upon the intellectual contributions of individual faculty as they affect faculty qualifications, seeking to ensure the distribution of a high quality faculty throughout all disciplines, programs and locations. STANDARD 2, INTELLECTUAL CONTRIBUTIONS Proposed changes to Standard 2 greatly enhance its clarity of purpose. While the current standard addresses both elements of mission appropriateness and intellectual contributions, the revised standard focuses solely upon intellectual contributions. Currently, Standard 2 states as follows: 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. [MISSION APPROPRIATENESS] (AACSB International, 2008c, p. 13)

12 In the proposed 2009 standards, the first sentence, addressing mission appropriateness, is moved to Standard 1, Mission Statement, and Standard 2 is revised to restore to the standards one that exclusively addresses intellectual contributions. The new Standard 2 states as follows: The school demonstrates, as an essential goal for the delivery of high quality management education, engagement in high quality research and scholarship aligned with its mission that advances theory, practice and/or learning pedagogy. [INTELLECTUAL CONTRIBUTIONS] (AACSB International, 2008a, p. 16) The new Standard 2 greatly reinforces the importance of quality research and scholarship to business schools. The currency and relevance of the intellectual contributions of faculty members are further emphasized in a new statement of interpretations and guidelines in support of the proposed Standard 2. It states, (p. 26) Research and scholarship in the form of intellectual contributions are essential for a business school to: Contribute to the achievement of knowledge of management theory, practice and/or learning /pedagogy; Ensure intellectual vibrancy across and among faculty members contributing to the currency and relevancy of management education programs; and Ensure the business school contributes and is an integral part of an academic community of scholars across all disciplines within an institution and in a larger context. The emphasis upon the importance of quality research and scholarship reflects the work of AACSB s Impact of Research Task Force. Recommendation Number 1 of the task force was to Extend and augment AACSB International accreditation guidelines to require schools to demonstrate the impact of faculty intellectual contributions on targeted audiences. (AACSB International, 2008b, p. 29) In new interpretive statements under the revised Standard 2, schools are expected to have infrastructures and processes that facilitate and encourage the production of intellectual contributions and schools are expected to articulate the value of its intellectual contribution outcomes to various constituencies. (2008a, p. 26) In addition, under the new Standard 2 s guidelines for documentation, schools are now asked: to demonstrate the school s infrastructure, policies and processes, which support the production of intellectual contributions; to display the portfolio of intellectual contributions for individual faculty within each discipline and for the business school as a whole; to produce two new tables to provide an overall 5- year summary of the school s intellectual contributions and to discuss how this aligns with the school s mission; and finally, to provide an analysis of the value of the school s intellectual contribution efforts and how a substantial cross section of the faculty in each discipline contribute to the school s portfolio of intellectual contributions. (p. 27) Thus, the obligation to document the quality and impact of faculty research for the five-year review period is significantly increased. A new Table 2-1, contained in the proposed guidelines for Standard 2 documentation (p. 28), is reproduced below as Figure 1. From the table it can be seen that current summary categorizations limiting reported faculty intellectual contributions to peer review journals (PRJ) or other intellectual contributions (OIC) have been replaced with nine categories. Though not all-inclusive, the additional categories in Table 2-1 display with more specificity, the different outcomes of scholarly activities that comprise the portfolio of intellectual contributions for individuals and disciplines. To be reported in the new Table 2-1 for individual faculty members by academic discipline are numbers of peer-reviewed journal articles, non-peer reviewed journal articles, research monographs, books, chapters, peer-reviewed proceedings, peer reviewed paper presentations, faculty workshops and seminars, and other forms of intellectual contributions.

13 To assist in the assessment of faculty intellectual contributions, Table 2-1 also makes it clear that schools are to establish and to provide for accreditation review a statement summarizing the school s overall policies regarding faculty intellectual contributions. In the parenthetical note in the title of the table, a footnote to the table is requested to accomplish this purpose. A second new table, Table 2-2, not reproduced in this paper, asks the schools to list the number of peer reviewed journals and the number of articles appearing in each peer reviewed journal for the five-year reporting period. This table provides a cursory assessment of the impact of faculty scholarship upon the academic literature. The two new tables will give readers and accreditation reviewers improved information upon which to evaluate the quantity, quality and possible impact of faculty intellectual contributions upon their intended audiences. The guidelines for Standard 2 will continue to state that the portfolio of intellectual contributions should reflect the mission of the school and that the relative emphasis on the different forms of intellectual contributions will vary with the array and level of degree programs offered. Current examples of intellectual contribution outcomes in the guidelines remain. These include book reviews, published cases with instructional materials, technical reports related to funded research projects, instructional software that is widely used, and publicly available materials describing the design and implementation of new curricula or courses. In addition to these examples, the proposed new standards document goes further to broaden the range of acceptability for faculty scholarly outcomes other than peer reviewed outcomes. To the list of examples the following is added: Non-peer reviewed intellectual contributions for which the school can provide substantive support for quality. (p. 31) Thus, the proposed 2009 standards and their interpretive guidelines continue to provide greater flexibility in the definition of acceptable faculty intellectual contributions. The listing of examples of research outcomes in the standards document is designed to recognize that intellectual contributions may include non-peer reviewed work, as long as the case can be made by the school for high quality. From our experience, the test of acceptability for accreditation review purposes will be determined largely by the extent to which the peer reviewed and non-peer reviewed outcomes of faculty scholarship are consistent with the school s mission and the expectations for quality research and publication expressed by the faculty and the school in their policies regarding intellectual contributions and faculty academic and professional qualifications.

14 Figure 1. Source: AACSB International (2008). Eligibility Procedures and Accreditation Standards for Business Accreditation: Exposure Draft for Comment with Draft Changes for 2009, p. 28. A further addition to the standards proposed for 2009 deals with situations where the portfolio of a school s intellectual contributions includes the work of visiting faculty or faculty who hold dual appointments. According to the proposed Standard 2 Basis for Judgment guidelines for schools and peer review team members, if the portfolio of intellectual contributions relies on the outputs of faculty members who have primary faculty appointments with other institutions, the school must provide documentation of how its relationship with the individual faculty member and the other institution contributes to the success of the school, supports its mission, and in particular, its portfolio of intellectual contributions. (p. 26) This provision is obviously designed to discourage schools from bolstering their intellectual contributions output by utilizing the publication records of visitors. A similar statement is proposed for Standard 10, which deals with Faculty Qualifications. There, it is stated that in cases where a substantial proportion of the business school s faculty resources hold primary appointments elsewhere, the school must document how this arrangement supports mission achievement, overall high quality and continuous improvement and how it is consistent with the spirit and intent of the accreditation standard. (p. 49) STANDARD 10, FACULTY QUALIFICATIONS Standard 10 addresses the granting and maintenance of faculty academic and professional qualifications. According to the current and proposed standards, a minimum of 50 percent of a school s total faculty resources are expected to be academically qualified and at least 90 percent of total faculty resources should be academically or professionally qualified. (p. 47) The proposed changes for 2009 reinforce the importance of intellectual contributions as a component of faculty qualifications. They also give greater credibility, if not greater weight, to non-research and publication activity among the criteria influencing the gaining and maintenance of faculty qualifications.

15 The current Standard 10, approved in 2003, states as follows: 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 individual faculty member s contributions to the school s mission. [FACULTY QUALIFICATIONS] (AACSB International, 2008c, p. 14) The proposed 2009 Standard 10 adds general criteria for the granting and maintenance of academic and professional qualifications. It states that: The faculty of the business school has, and maintains, current expertise to accomplish the mission and to ensure this occurs, the school has clearly defined processes to evaluate individual faculty member s contribution to the school s mission. The school specifies for both academically and professional qualified faculty, initial (original academic preparation and/or professional experience) as well as maintenance requirements (intellectual contribution, professional development activities, or actual practice.) [FACULTY QUALIFICATIONS] (AACSB International, 2008a, p. 10) The continued importance of intellectual contributions as a component of faculty academic qualifications is clear. A statement added to the interpretive material for the revised Standard 10 declares that, Since the intent of academic qualifications is to assure that faculty members have research competence in their primary field of teaching, the existence of a current research record in the teaching field may be accepted as prima facie evidence of academic qualifications, regardless of credentials. (AACSB International, 2008a, p. 50) That faculty qualification expectations are required of total faculty resources, including full-time and parttime or adjunct faculty, is reflected in other new statements under Standard 10. For example, the 2009 proposal states that, all faculty members should demonstrate they are current in their field of teaching supported by appropriate, ongoing development activities and academic preparation. (AACSB International, 2008a, p. 47) But the proposed new language of Standard 10 suggests that faculty developmental activities other than intellectual contribution activities may be given greater importance as activities supporting the enhancement of faculty qualifications. Both the current and proposed interpretations for Standard 10 state that a school should develop appropriate criteria consistent with its mission for the classification of faculty as academically or professionally qualified. In addition, it indicates that policies should be developed to provide criteria by which academically and professionally qualified status is granted or maintained. Under the current standards it is stated that the criteria should address: (1) the priority and value of different activity outcomes reflecting the mission and strategic management processes, (2) the quality standards required of each activity and how quality is measured, and (3) the quantity and frequency of activities and outcomes expected within a typical review cycle to maintain each status. (Emphasis added. AACSB International, 2008c, p. 48) From our experience, the foremost activity recognized for supporting faculty qualification status is currently the production of intellectual contributions, and the foremost of these is the publication of peer reviewed journal articles. In practice, schools are asked by AACSB accreditation advisors and peer review teams to develop and apply policies which establish with some specificity the quantity and quality of intellectual contribution activity needed over the five-year accreditation review period in order to establish or maintain academic qualifications. Typically, depending on the level of degree offerings, school mission and other factors, policies are common that require a minimum number of peer reviewed journal articles over the five years prior to accreditation review. For example, a doctoral school may require one or more high quality peer reviewed journal articles for each of the five years. A school offering a mix of undergraduate and masters programs may require two or three peer reviewed journal articles plus other high quality intellectual

16 contributions in five years. A school offering undergraduate degrees only, whose mission is primarily instruction may require fewer than two peer reviewed journals in five years. The current standards already state that faculty members can maintain qualifications through a variety of efforts including professional development and current professional experience, in addition to the production of intellectual contributions. (AACSB International, 2008c, p. 47) The wording of the proposed interpretive guidelines for Standard 10 broadens further the meaning of activity so that it is clearly not limited to intellectual contribution activities, but instead encompasses other forms of faculty professional development activity. In the 2009 document, it is proposed that in establishing school policies to provide criteria by which academically or professionally qualified status is granted and maintained, the criteria should address: (1) consistent with the stated mission, the types of development activities that are required to maintain academic or professional qualifications on an ongoing basis; (2) the priority and value of different development activities reflecting the mission and strategic management processes; (3) quality standards required for the various, specified development activities and how quality is assured; and (4) the quantity and frequency of development activities and outcomes expected within the typical five-year AACSB review cycle to maintain each status. (Emphasis added. AACSB International, 2008a, p. 48) Thus, it appears that faculty development activities in general, and not intellectual contribution activities in particular, may become more of a key to the granting and maintenance of faculty qualifications. That the importance of intellectual contributions, per se, as a qualifications criterion is diminished is apparent in the proposed changes in the interpretive materials that discuss how one might lose academically or professionally qualified status and what must be done to maintain these qualifications. Under the current standards it is clear that scholarly activity is needed in order to maintain faculty qualifications. The Standard 10 interpretive materials now state that, Classification as academically or professionally qualified may be lost if there is inadequate evidence of contributions in the last five years through learning and pedagogical research, contributions to practice, or discipline-based scholarship... (AACSB International, 2008c, p. 46) In the proposed Standard 10 change, the connotation that maintenance of qualifications is largely a function of research activity is removed in favor of language calling for development activities instead and references to forms of scholarship are removed. Classification as academically or professionally qualified may be lost if there is inadequate evidence of development activities within the past five years that demonstrate currency and relevancy in the field of teaching. (Emphasis added, AACSB International, 2008a, p. 51) Both the current and the proposed interpretive guidelines for Standard 10 state that all faculty members are expected to demonstrate activities that maintain the currency and relevance of their instruction and that faculty members can maintain qualifications through a variety of efforts including production of intellectual contributions, professional development and current professional experience. (p.52) The interpretations go further to state that, There is no intent in these standards to describe a fixed pattern of activities faculty members must follow to maintain their qualifications. Expectations of the school, as well as individual characteristics and circumstances, will guide the choice of maintenance efforts. (pp ) Categories of faculty development activities that can support AQ or PQ status are depicted in a new Table 10-1 (p.54), reproduced below in Figure 2. Like Table 10-1 in the current standards document, for individual faculty members by discipline, it requires the identification of highest degree, date of appointment, percent of time dedicated to mission and classification of faculty as academically qualified, professionally qualified or other (i.e., neither). In the table, schools are asked for the first time to provide

17 a five-year summary of individual faculty member development activities to support their AQ or PQ designations. The categories of development activities include the total of all intellectual contributions, now appearing in a single column, and additional activities such as professional experience, consulting, professional development and other professional activities. This format reaffirms the importance of intellectual contributions. It also highlights the role of other forms of ongoing professional development of academically qualified, as well as professionally qualified faculty, in order to maintain AQ or PQ status. Does the increased role for other forms of faculty development mean that attendance at academic and professional meetings and seminars, enrollment in graduate study, extensive reading of the latest literature in one s field, internships in industry and other non-research activities will replace research and publication as the most important development activities for AQ purposes? Probably not, in our view. According to AACSB s rationale for the addition of other forms of faculty development in the Standard 10 interpretive guidelines and in Table 10-1, this in no way weakens AACSB s focus on the importance of research and scholarship since schools have to demonstrate alignment with the expectations of Standard 2, Intellectual Contributions. (AACSB International, 2008e, pp. 3-4) Will faculty who do not meet the intellectual contribution and publication expectations of their school and/or peer review teams be able to retain their AQ/PQ status on the basis of other development activities? Probably so, if the case can be made that the non-research activities are of high quality, relate to the teaching field and are consistent with the mission of the school. Only experience with the proposed 2009 changes will reveal the extent to which the new wording of Standard 10 and its interpretations will advance faculty development activities, other than intellectual contributions, as evidence to support the granting or maintenance of faculty qualifications. Figure 2. Source: AACSB International (2008). Eligibility Procedures and Accreditation Standards for Business Accreditation: Exposure Draft for Comment with Draft Changes for 2009, p. 54. SUMMARY, IMPLICATIONS AND CONCLUSIONS

18 The evolution of the role of faculty scholarship and intellectual contributions in AACSB accreditation is an interesting one. The desire for high quality research and publication by business faculty has been motivated to a great extent by the need for business schools to gain credibility in academia and in the public arena of business. Criticisms of business schools as trade schools in the 1950 s led to a period when existing AACSB-accredited schools made basic and theoretical research published in high quality peer reviewed journals the norm. While this model is appropriate for doctoral research programs, many non-doctoral schools that desired the prestige and other benefits of AACSB accreditation found the research expectations for accreditation difficult to satisfy and/or inappropriate, given their predominant teaching and service missions, and their limited resources. Growth in the number of accredited schools was slow until after the 1991 changes in the AACSB accreditation standards. Those changes altered the paradigm for business accreditation by introducing a mission-based philosophy, by encouraging applied and pedagogical scholarship along with basic research, by acknowledging the value of intellectual contribution outlets other than peer reviewed journal publication, by encouraging continuous improvement, which assumes that schools with weaknesses should be given an opportunity to address those concerns while on the journey to accreditation, and by introducing a Candidacy Program, which provided schools with a map and directions for the accreditation journey. By the beginning of the current decade, in response to concerns over the quality of instruction and learning, the accreditation standards were again changed to increase their focus on guidelines and processes to address assurance of learning. The elimination of the Intellectual Contributions standard in 2003 did not eliminate interest in research as a core faculty responsibility, as a factor essential for the acquisition and maintenance of faculty qualifications, and as an activity that should have demonstrated value and impact on the intended audiences. The work of the AACSB s Impact of Research Task Force gave renewed attention to an understanding of the role of research in business education. The task force observed in its 2008 final report that business schools continue to place too much emphasis on basic research and counting journal articles over other forms of scholarship, such as contributions to teaching pedagogy and business practice. Task force recommendations have stressed the need for business schools to demonstrate the impact of faculty intellectual contributions on targeted audiences and the need to develop improved interactions between academics and practicing managers in the production and application of research. We anticipate that demonstration of the impact of research will present challenges for faculty members and schools. Some of the proposed 2009 changes in the AACSB business accreditation standards that relate to intellectual contributions reflect the discussions and recommendations of the Impact of Research Task Force. Some of the changes reflect AACSB s need to continue to balance the desire for high quality scholarship with the desire to encourage the faculty and leadership of a diverse array of schools, in the United States and worldwide, to pursue overall high quality and business accreditation. The restoration of a specific Intellectual Contributions standard in Standard 2 reaffirms that faculty scholarship is an important factor in the assessment of business school quality for accreditation purposes. The new guidance statement that schools should have an infrastructure and processes that facilitate and encourage the production of intellectual contributions makes it clear that policies and pronouncements should help to assure that more than lip service is paid to faculty scholarship. The proposed new Standard 2 provides better clarity, focus and more detailed information that will permit faculty members and schools to portray more easily their portfolio of intellectual contributions. For example, disaggregation of Other Intellectual Contributions in Table 2-1 will assist peer review teams in their assessment of the form, quantity and quality of intellectual contributions.

19 The expansion of the list of acceptable outcomes and outlets for intellectual contributions in the accreditation standards has been ongoing since the 1991 changes. It recognizes the credibility and value of scholarly activities other than the production of peer reviewed journal articles. The proposed 2009 standards add to the list of acceptable outcomes non-peer reviewed intellectual contributions for which the school can provide substantive support for quality. This is a significant addition. The further liberalization of expectations for scholarship may be viewed by some as evidence of a movement toward mediocrity. (See, Francisco et al., 2008) We believe otherwise. In our view, just as peer review does not guarantee the existence of high quality scholarship, the lack of peer review does not necessarily signal its absence. Of interest for the future will be the extent to which the case can be successfully made that consulting reports, expert testimony and other forms of private scholarship are acceptable as intellectual contributions, as well as examples of faculty development to support the maintenance of faculty academic or professional qualifications. The introduction in Table 2.2 of a specific listing of the names of peer reviewed journals in which faculty publish and the number of articles in each, however, sends a strong message that great interest in peer review journal publication will continue as accreditation teams seek evidence of high quality intellectual contribution activity in the school. The use of visiting faculty members and those who hold primary appointments at other institutions will be reviewed and scrutinized to see if schools are relying upon the scholarship of outsiders to improve their intellectual contributions portfolio. As a result, administrators are likely to be less inclined to use such appointments, if the purpose is to merely pad faculty productivity and qualifications. In conclusion, the proposed changes in the 2009 accreditation will have an impact on business schools and business faculty and administrators. Improved planning, documentation and reporting of intellectual contribution and faculty development activities should be forthcoming. Whether the 2009 changes in the standards and their interpretations with regard to intellectual contributions will result in improved teaching and improved relevance to the business and management community is yet to be determined. REFERENCES AACSB-The International Association for Management Education (2001). Achieving Quality and Continuous Improvement through Self-Evaluation and Peer Review: Standards for Accreditation, Adopted April 23, 1991, Revised February 14, St. Louis: AACSB, 54pp. AACSB International-The Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (2008a). Eligibility Procedures and Accreditation Standards for Business Accreditation: Exposure Draft for Comment with Draft Changes for Tampa, FL: AACSB International, 82pp. EXPOSURE-DRAFT-FOR-COMMENT-OCT pdf AACSB International-The Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (2008b). Final Report of the AACSB International Impact of Research Task Force. Tampa, FL: AACSB International, 48pp. AACSB International-The Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (2008c). Eligibility Procedures and Accreditation Standards for Business Accreditation: Adopted April 25, 2003, Revised January 31, Tampa, FL: AACSB International, 78pp.

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