Accreditation Sickness in the Consumption of Business Education: The Vacuum in AACSB Standard Setting
以AACSB为例，指出同行评审的认证模式在成为国际标准后，导致商业教育核心内容被抽空，对不符合其灵活框架的教育产生限制和不良影响。
This article examines peer-administered accreditation in business education, taking AACSB (Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business) as its focus. Attention is directed to the educationally unhealthy consequences of an established regional mode of accreditation becoming an international benchmark for business education consumption. At the heart of the AACSB’s mission-linked approach is an evacuation of core content from business education. The change to a mission-linked architecture was motivated, it is argued, primarily by expansionist, rather than pedagogical, considerations. It coincided with a reduction in the number of US research-based schools unaccredited, the inability of many US-business schools to meet AACSB’s previous standards, the emergence of a rival accreditation agency (Association of Collegiate Business Schools and Programs) formed to target this market, and international competition from other accreditation bodies. We note that the mission-linked approach, underpinned by peer-review, has been good for AACSB growth but has, we suggest, been restrictive and unhealthy for business education that does not fit its ostensibly flexible and accommodating mould.