By Hanna McLeod
Exploring and understanding faculty trends in business schools have been areas of interest for many years at AACSB. With developments in program delivery and teaching methods, as well as new demands of employers and students, the composition of faculty is expected to see some changes in the coming years. The faculty qualifications listed in the AACSB Accreditation Standards recognize that it is impractical to group business school faculty in an ‘either, or’ category, and other backgrounds and experiences play a role in the composition of business school faculty.
For a recent project, I looked at a comparison of Salary Survey data for a controlled set of participants from 2005-06, 2009-10, and 2013-14, comparing full-time faculty positions filled to full-time faculty positions filled by doctorates, specifically within the accounting discipline. Below is what the data show:
Figure 1. Full-Time Faculty Positions in AccountingSource: AACSB Salary Survey
The numbers outside of the brackets show the gap between full-time faculty positions and full-time faculty positions filled by doctorates – and that gap is widening, by 41.3 percent from 2005-06 to 2013-14, to be exact. How does this compare to faculty across all business disciplines? See below:
Figure 2. Full-Time Faculty Positions in All DisciplinesSource: AACSB Salary Survey
The gap is also widening across all business disciplines, and at a similar rate as that seen within the accounting discipline (by 40.2 percent from 2005-06 to 2013-14). Some of you may wonder what is going on behind the data. One interpretation may be decreasing demand for individuals with doctorates to fill faculty positions, and subsequently greater reliance on individuals with professional experience – anecdotally, not uncommon in the accounting discipline. Business schools may be looking to diversify their faculty portfolios with individuals with different types of backgrounds, skills, and experiences. Another interpretation may be that there is a shortage in qualified doctoral faculty, especially within accounting. What have you observed at your own institution? What other data would you like to see to shed some more light on this trend?
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