Does AACSB Accreditation Matter When Forming Collaborations?

By Colin Nelson

Recently, I’ve been doing some deeper analysis of the data from AACSB’s most recent Collaborations Survey in support of our upcoming Management Education Forum on Developing High-Impact Collaborations. While doing so, I noticed that there were significant differences between AACSB-accredited reporting schools and reporting schools without AACSB accreditation in the proportion of partnerships with other schools by accreditation status.

Figure 1. Reported Partnerships by AACSB Accreditation Status

Source: AACSB International Collaborations Survey 2010-11. Note: This chart does not account for the 45 reported partnerships with non-business academic units or non-educational institutions, for whom accreditation is not applicable.

As a reminder, partnerships in the context of our survey denote a one-to-one relationship between two institutions involved in a collaboration. A reporting school can have one or many partnerships within a single given collaboration.

As you can see, nearly 45% of all partnerships reported by AACSB-accredited schools were with other AACSB-accredited schools. By contrast, less than a quarter of the partnerships reported by schools without AACSB accreditation were with AACSB-accredited schools.

There are a number of different reasons why this difference might exist. AACSB-accredited schools may desire (or simply have the ability) to exercise greater discrimination in their choices of whom to collaborate with. After all, if your partner is also accredited, there is less need to be concerned about whether they can deliver the same level of quality on their part of any collaborative arrangement, so allying with another accredited school may be more attractive as a result.

It is also worth noting that this pattern of partner selection does not necessarily apply universally when you break the total number of partnerships down by the different types of activity we track:

Table 1. Percentage of Reported Partnerships, by Activity Type and Partner Accreditation Status

Activity Type	Accredited Reporting Schools		Non-accredited Reporting Schools
	Accredited Partner	Non-accredited Partner	Accredited Partner	Non-accredited Partner
Articulation/ Twinning Agreement	15.8%	84.2%	25.0%	75.0%
Dual Degree (or Multiple Degree)	36.5%	63.5%	33.0%	67.0%
Faculty Activity	45.2%	54.8%	17.4%	82.6%
Franchise Agreement	14.3%	85.7%	0.0%	100%
Joint Degree	51.0%	49.0%	17.7%	82.3%
Non-Degree/ Executive Education	54.6%	45.4%	35.7%	64.3%
Shared Resources	53.9%	46.1%	32.5%	67.5%
Study Abroad/ Student Exchange	45.5%	54.5%	24.1%	75.9%
Validation Agreement	0.0%	100%	33.3%	66.7%
Other	47.0%	53.0%	15.3%	84.7%

Source: AACSB International Collaborations Survey 2010-11. Note: This table does not account for the 45 reported partnerships with non-business academic units or non-educational institutions, for whom accreditation is not applicable.

More than 80% of all partnerships reported by AACSB-accredited schools involving Articulation/Twinning, Franchise, and Validation Agreements are with partners that do not have AACSB accreditation. This makes sense, of course, because accredited schools are much less likely to have need of AACSB-accredited partners for these types of collaborative activities. On the other hand, when it comes to partnerships involving Joint Degrees, Non-Degree/Executive Education, and Shared Resources, AACSB-accredited schools show a clear preference for partners who are likewise AACSB-accredited.

Comments

[apps for iphone]

I can see your point here partnering with a collaborative school.And with that, you will have the authority or the ability to exercise with your decision making in allying with another accredited school.You have a substantial survey!

[Business Collaboration]

This is a great inspiring article. I am pretty much pleased with your good work. You put really very helpful information. Keep it up. Keep blogging.Thank you and good luck.

[Colin]

Bookkeeper,

It's definitely not an issue for the partner of an AACSB-accredited school to be non-accredited themselves. In cases of collaborative activities such as franchise, twinning or validation agreements, for example, it actually makes sense that an accredited school would have a non-accredited partner more often than not, since another accredited school would generally have less need for the prestige and brand-value that a program offered in collaboration with an accredited partner brings. Nevertheless, AACSB-accredited schools must be careful to ensure that all programs that fall under the scope of accreditation are properly assessed, including those that involve partner institutions, accredited or otherwise.

[Bookkeeper Sunshine Coast]

Congratulations for your survey and for producing a deep analysis in your research. From its result, I think it's not necessary to have ACSB accreditation for these collaborative activities.

[Colin]

Larry,

Essentially, yes, though of course a peer-review team can and should ensure that the accredited institution has policies and procedures in place to make certain that any coursework delivered by a non-accredited partner is of equal quality. To get at the thrust of your question, though, AACSB does not dictate the terms of its accredited schools' partnerships.

[Larry Gould]

So, transfer of coursework from a non-accredited institution to an AACSB institution is a choice of the accredited institution and not an AACSB guideline?