By Elliot Davis
Student perception of how effectively business schools have prepared them for a successful career has always been an important factor when determining the impact and quality of any business school. But what about the perceptions of the leaders of these business schools? How do they perceive their own preparation for leadership?
The AACSB Deans Survey is conducted triennially in order to better understand trends and profiles of business school deans’ offices around the world. On AACSB’s recent 2017-18 Deans Survey, business school deans were asked how prepared they were for their deanship upon entering into the role. Deans used a four-point scale, with 1 = Not at all prepared, 2 = Somewhat unprepared, 3 = Somewhat prepared, and 4 = Highly prepared. *
Survey respondents include 585 deans from 64 countries and territories, 23 percent of whom are female and 51 percent of whom indicated that they had been in their role for at least three years.The following are some of the findings we gleaned regarding how prepared deans are for their role from the responses to our AACSB 2017–18 Dean’s Survey.
Activity Preparedness Ranking
|
Activity |
Mean (4=Max) |
|
Academic and programmatic development |
3.51 |
|
Strategic planning |
3.47 |
|
Faculty recruitment and retention |
3.43 |
|
Engaging with the business community |
3.33 |
|
Faculty development |
3.32 |
|
Budget planning |
3.29 |
|
Working with central administration |
3.18 |
|
Student recruitment and retention |
3.14 |
|
Communications (public relations, marketing, etc.) |
3.13 |
|
Accreditation management |
3.04 |
|
Fundraising |
2.56 |
Approximately 93.3 percent of deans reported being highly prepared or somewhat prepared for academic and programmatic development, similar results were seen with strategic planning (93.7 percent) and faculty recruitment and retention (93.3 percent). At the other end of the spectrum, just 53 percent of deans reported being at least somewhat prepared to manage fundraising.
Sixty-eight percent of deans admitted to being somewhat unprepared or not at all prepared to manage at least one of their activities.
About the AACSB Deans Survey
Participation in the Deans Survey is optional and is limited to deans of AACSB member schools. If you’d like to learn more about the Deans Survey or its companion survey that runs concurrently with it, the Senior Business School Administrators Survey, visit aacsb.edu/data.
*Deans were also given the option to indicate that the activity was not applicable to their role.
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