American Assembly Of Collegiate Schools Of Business Research Articles

Centennium of collegiate real estate education: a prospection on “the search for a discipline” in the American school of business

PurposeThis study reviews the teaching of real estate in the USA for the first 100 years after the foundational curriculum was laid down in 1923 by three key institutions: the National Association of Real Estate Boards (NAREB), the Institute for Research in Land Economics and Public Utilities (The Institute) and the American Assembly of Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB). Its line of investigative pursuit is the persistent lamentation by American real estate scholars that real estate is not getting the respect it deserves as an academic discipline compared to its peers in the school of business such as accounting, finance and marketing. The study addresses a fundamental question: What is the cause of this endless “search for a discipline”? This is motivated by the belief that identification of the root cause of this “search for a discipline” will lead to the requisite solution: the intellectual foundation of the real estate discipline.Design/methodology/approachThe study used qualitative document analysis to review two primary documents published in 1959 as reports on business education in the USA: (1) Higher Education for Business, financed and sponsored by the Ford Foundation, and (2) The Education of American Businessmen – financed and sponsored by the Carnegie Corporation of New York. The impacts of the publications on the teaching of real estate to date have been reviewed in the context of scholarly actions and literature that has been generated in relation to the two documents.FindingsThe two primary documents impacted negatively on the teaching of real estate. The committee members who produced the two reports had indicated that real estate did not fit into the business curriculum hence should not be taught in business school. This conclusion led to unintended negative outcomes for real estate education. The negative impact of the reports arose principally because the teachers of real estate misinterpreted the outcome to mean that they should tweak the real estate curriculum to fit in the pedagogical framework of the business school. This reaction is responsible for perpetuating the identity crisis that has plagued real estate as an academic discipline since its inception as a subject of study in 1923. Secondly, at the inception of the real estate education in 1923, while the AACSB accepted real estate as a discipline in the school of business, Richard T. Ely wrote the curriculum under land economics which has led to the persistent collegiate dilemma regarding the teaching of the discipline.Social implicationsThe study sheds light on the situation of business education in the USA and AACSB-accredited colleges internationally. It draws attention to the incoherent body of knowledge of business education and will help schools of business to redesign their curricula to include course contents that rightly reflects the business oriented academic disciplines.Originality/valueThe study is timely as it has been done 100 years since the development of the first standard collegiate real estate curriculum following the 1923 conference at Madison. The study has reviewed the first 100 years in terms of the persistent quest: “in search of a discipline”. In so doing, it has uncovered the root cause of this search during the first centennium; and to end the search, it proposes that real estate should not be taught as a business discipline.

Achieving globalization of AACSB accounting programs with faculty-led study abroad education

ABSTRACTThis paper is motivated by recommendations from the American Assembly of Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB), the Pathways Commission, and NAFSA: Association of International Educators to increase global exposure in the accounting curriculum. Some schools have responded to these demands by offering short-duration, faculty-led, study abroad programs. We explain how these programs play a vital role in fulfilling the educational advisory boards’ calls to internationalize the accounting curriculum and investigate the extent to which schools are incorporating these programs. This paper provides a review of the details from our hand-collected data on the short programs that are offered by AACSB-accredited institutions. We integrate the information from our collection of data on existing programs, prior literature, pronouncements from educational advisory boards, and select faculty interviews to offer an analysis of the course design and travel considerations for schools contemplating such an opportunity for students in their programs.

Observations On The Current Status Of Internationalizing The Accounting Curriculum: Catalog Evidence

The last quarter century has witnessed the acceleration of the development of the global economy. This on-going development has caused profound changes in the way business is conducted and the skills needed by the executives leading this change. Recognizing the need to better prepare future corporate executives to function in this global environment, the American Assembly of Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB), as part of a revision of its accreditation standards, included a curriculum standard requiring business schools to address the international dimension of business. To aid business schools in addressing this standard, the AACSB joined with the Consortium for International Studies Education to produce resource guides in 1987 for the functional areas of accounting, finance, management, and marketing. The accounting guide described two approaches that could be used to address the internationalization of the accounting curriculum. The freestanding approach would use a stand-alone international accounting course. The infusion approach would integrate international topics within other accounting courses. This paper assesses the extent that the accounting curriculum has been internationalized by reference to evidence obtained from the catalogs of ninety-six universities with AACSB-accredited business programs. Thirty-seven of these programs showed no catalog disclosure of international content of their accounting courses. The remaining fifty-nine programs revealed international content in their accounting courses to varying degrees, as discussed in the body of the paper.

Efficiency in accounting education: evidence from Turkish Universities

It is important to see efficiency of accounting education in order to fully understand the operational environment of companies. In this study, the 45 public universities in Turkey was investigated by using Data Envelopment Analysis [DEA]. In order, some definitions for the outputs and inputs are required for the model. The criteria developed by American Assembly of Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) is used as definitions for inputs, is used and the result of the Selection Exam for Public Personnel [SEPP] is used to measure efficiency in accounting education. According to our results, Turkish universities are successful in producing the most appropriate output. They are usually using their input components in a favorable way. According to our model accounting education delivered in the undergraduate programs of the higher education system in Turkey is generally effective. But universities are using resources excessively to get the output. On the departmental basis, Turkish universities are technically effective to a great extent. It is determined that the departments of labor economics, industrial relations and partially public finance are more effective departments. According to resource usage, while the most effective departments are departments of public finance, departments of business administration are the most ineffective ones.

Perceived Characteristics and Abilities of an Effective Marketing Department Head

This study uses an Internet survey of 247 full-time marketing faculty members and 43 marketing department heads at 167 American Assembly of Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) universities to examine perceptions of characteristics and abilities crucial for marketing department head effectiveness. It also examines crucial department success measures for judging a marketing department head’s effectiveness. Implications for faculty, department heads, and university administrators are addressed.

The Environment for Professional Interaction and Relevant Practical Experience in AACSB-Accredited Accounting Programs

Exposure to business issues and practices has never been more important than in today's ever-changing environment. This is explicitly recognized in the American Assembly of Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) standards for accounting accreditation. In this study, the author surveyed faculty members at nondoctoral-granting institutions with separate AACSB accounting accreditation to investigate which faculty activities schools are emphasizing and expecting. Results of the study indicate that, depending on their mission, schools could be placing more emphasis on faculty involvement in business and the accounting profession.

Evidence of Teaching Anxiety Among Accounting Educators

In this study, the authors investigated teaching anxiety among accounting professors in the United States. The vast majority of respondents (78%) in our study reported having experienced some type of teaching anxiety, and a substantial proportion (69%) indicated that it was a continuing problem. In addition, 38.5% of the respondents reported specific physical symptoms such as heart-rate acceleration, gastrointestinal distress, or being flushed while experiencing teaching anxiety, and 80% reported general psychological reactions such as apprehension. Occurrence of teaching anxiety was associated with academic rank, age, years of teaching experience, the nature of the institution (whether doctoral granting or not), and whether the accounting department had separate American Assembly of Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) accreditation.

Dialectical possibilities of thwarted responsibilities

Abstract The university’s responsibility in the new world dominated by global organizations is to articulate the contemporary socio-economic challenges brought about by the globalization of capital and capitalistic enterprises, enlighten society to the implications, and formulate and disseminate means for responding in an informed and just manner to the challenges. The paper argues that the colonization of the lifeworld of the university, especially schools and departments of accounting, has, and continues to, inhibit, indeed actively thwarts, the academy in carrying out its social responsibility. In a previous work (Dillard & Tinker, 1996), the authors argue that the international management system is directly implicated in dictating process and content within business schools by, among other things, influencing the accreditation standards of the American Assembly of Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB). The current paper evaluates the developments subsequent to the total quality management (TQM) based accreditation standards implemented in the early 1990s. The focus is primarily on accounting education, accounting department/schools, and the accounting academic. A case is made for the position that the new Baldridge Award criteria for education performance excellence, the new AACSB accounting accreditation guidelines approved in 2000, the revolutionary changes in the constitution and by-laws of Beta Alpha Psi (the US professional accounting fraternity), and the current position of the American Accounting Association (AAA) as articulated in AAA monograph (Accounting Education Series, No. 16) by Albrecht and Sack are manifestations of the managerialist influence continuing to at best neutralize the academy’s responsibilities to any constituencies other than global capitalism primarily articulated in the demands of the Big 5 professional service (formally accounting) firms. The discussion evaluates the recommendations of each of the four regulative documents in terms of the underlying ideology and concludes with a discussion of the dialectic possibilities confronting accounting education.

Overcoming Barriers to Successful Delivery of Distance-Learning Courses

For this study, the authors collected data from 81 business professors who taught distance-learning courses at 61 U.S. business schools accredited by the American Assembly of Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB). Findings indicate that the professors (a) primarily used self-training for the design and delivery of on-line courses, (b) believed that the technology was not sufficiently reliable, (c) believed that the greatest benefit of distance learning was flexibility for students, and (d) perceived a student-centered teaching approach as necessary for successful distance-education courses.

Let's Have More Choice in Accounting Education: A Look at Some Economic and Ethical Issues

Accounting education has become quite rigid, mostly because it is structured along the lines of a monopoly. The American Assembly of Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) has been granted a national monopoly by the Department of Education to accredit business programs and the six regional accreditation agencies have a similar monopoly for their regions of the country. Curriculum is structured along the lines of a top-down system. The author argues for more flexibility in curriculum requirements using a bottom-up approach that is more consumer driven.

Quality management applied to higher education

In the last decade, many universities and American Assembly of Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) have increased their interest in applying principles of quality management to higher education. There is general agreement on the tools of quality management, however, there is limited discussion and no universally agreed upon model of quality management. We propose a model of quality management that has three components: quality of design, quality of conformance and quality of performance. The model is applied to Rochester Institute of Technology's College of Business. It provides a framework to identify research, teaching and operational improvement opportunities.

Ethical Preferences among Business Leaders: Implications for Business Schools

Since 1976, the American Assembly of Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) has encouraged business schools to include ethics in their curricula. Because lan guage is the means for conveying values, including ethical values, business com munication faculty play an important role in deciding what should be taught, and how. But until very recently, most researchers failed to look specifically at actual practices and perceptions in the workplace. To address that need, we conducted a survey of 250 business leaders concerning their ethical preferences and compared our results with an earlier study of business faculty and students. The survey, adapted from one used in the Arthur Andersen Business Ethics Program, consists of 20 narratives which presented respondents with the need to judge the impor tance of certain issues and their approval or disapproval of the action or decision described. We found no significant differences in responses to the 14 items which addressed ethical issues in such areas as creating health and environmental risks, taking credit when credit is not due, focusing on disability issues, deceiving cus tomers with products and services, and using insider information to gain personal advantage. We did find significant differences in responses to six narratives focused on ignoring wrongdoing in the workplace, doing special favors for others to gain personal advantage, and covering up flaws in merchandise or operations. Our results, and the survey instrument itself, provide useful tools for the business com munication classroom.

The Second Course in Business Statistics and Its Role in Undergraduate Marketing Education

The emphasis on mechanics in business statistics courses poses a problem for marketing research instructors who teach their course with an application emphasis. Instructors of marketing research could find students ill prepared for the course. As a result, some marketing programs require students to take a research laboratory or break the research course into two parts of 3 credit hours each. This article outlines an alternative. Repositioning (reengineering) the second course in business statistics from a problem-solving orientation to a decision-making emphasis eliminates the need for an additional research course. A 2-year experience teaching the course shows students to be better prepared for the marketing research course. In addition, how to develop and assess key business skills such as communication, problem solving, decision making, and computer use in the course is also discussed. Assessment of outcomes is presently mandated by the American Assembly of Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB).

Building collections for accreditation: a case study

The Capital College of Pennsylvania State University received accreditation from the American Assembly of Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) in 1998 for all of its undergraduate and graduate business programs. This article outlines the activities performed by librarians to aid in the accreditation process, with an emphasis on collection development activities. Included is a discussion of types of reports and information requested, techniques used to build collections for accreditation purposes, methods used to evaluate collections, an overview of the accreditation team’s site visit to the library, and a copy of the final report submitted by the library. An overview of the AACSB and library requirements for accreditation are also included.

Research Commentary. Academic Rewards for Teaching, Research, and Service: Data and Discourse

In most institutions faculty members are expected to teach, research, and perform community service. The emphasis placed on each activity is expected to vary considerably between institutions and departments. To examine this expectation, a nationwide survey was made of both American Assembly of Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) institutions and non-AACSB institutions, participants rated 80 publications for their value in reviews of research performance, and responded to a series of questions pertaining to the importance of publication types on the merit compensation, promotion, and tenure processes. These results were made available to the IS community, and approximately 150 comments were obtained. The survey results and the comments suggest that there might be some convergence in expectations of academic performance across institutions, as research-oriented institutions require better performance on teaching, teaching-oriented institutions require better performance in research, and all institutions impose greater service demands on IS faculty.

Measuring Computer Literacy through the use of Proficiency Exams

Computer literacy is a necessity for students graduating with business degrees. Incoming freshmen are now entering business programs with a level of competency that suggests they do not need to take the traditional computer literacy course. However, students do need to be familiar with the University's computer environment to complete assignments effectively in their business programs. In this paper we describe the development and implementation of proficiency exams to establish students' computer literacy in an American Assembly of Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) program. The staffing and scheduling of proficiency exams and seminars in proficiency areas are also discussed. We provide suggestions for successfully implementing such a program.

The Master of Science in Management Program at Minot State University: An Alternative to the Traditional MBA and a Model for Small Universities

ABSTRACT Many educational institutions across the country Lire looking at an alternative graduate degree in business to the traditional MBA program in order to meet the needs of their communities. Small and rural universities such as Minot State University, located in the Northwestern region of the state of North Dakota, do not possess the academic resources, which the American Assembly of Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) requires business schools to have, in order to offer MBA program. But a need exists for a graduate degree in business in such small and rural communities across the country. The model developed at MSU to meet such a need could be replicated and emulated by other similar educational institutions across the country. The strategy recommended is for rural and remote colleges and universities to aggregate market segments in the localities needing and wanting graduate business education services.

Dean's Role in Change: the case of professional accreditation reform of American collegiate business education

This multiple case study investigated the perceptions of the business school dean's role in implementing the new American Assembly of Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) accreditation standards and factors supporting or constraining that role. Deans, management and marketing department chairs, and faculty were interviewed at four accredited comprehensive universities in the spring of 1996. The results of this study indicate that deans can facilitate faculty involvement in accreditation change but only to a limited extent. This study revealed that a variety of roles and actors exist, and that they are influenced by both disciplinary community and local institutional restrictions and expectations. The overlapping structures of the institution spread the loci of control among institutional standards, business school standards, and disciplinary and individual faculty expectations and may constrain the dean's leadership role and ability to facilitate faculty involvement in educational reform.

Evaluating Teaching Effectiveness in America's Business Schools: Implications for Service Marketers

ABSTRACT In some industries, workers may evaluate their bosses. This is often used as one of several methods to ascertain the administrative ability of the manager. However, in the majority of business schools across the country, student evaluations of faculty are the most frequently used method of evaluating teaching effectiveness. Does this practice encourage business school faculty to teach their students with future employers in mind, or does it encourage faculty to teach with their own student evaluations in mind? The purpose of this study is to investigate the use of student course evaluation instruments by colleges and universities accredited by the American Assembly of Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB).

Making Business Schools Responsive to Customers: Lessons Learned and Actions

This article addresses a paradigm shift in schools of business from product-driven to consumer-driven institutions, necessitated by competition, consumer demands for distance learning, and private-sector alternatives. The new standards pronounced by the American Assembly of Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) represent an attempt to facilitate this paradigm shift. The extent to which the AACSB accreditation process can increase organizational flexibility and customer responsiveness is discussed via a simplified strategic management model. Although the accreditation process is an valuable evaluation tool, creating effective customer responsive organizations should begin with strategic planning at each of the individual business schools.