The commitment required of a university or business school to gain international accreditation is significant, both in dollar terms and staff time. This thesis seeks to explain the motivations for business schools to seek accreditation with three major accrediting bodies, AACSB International, EFMD and AMBA, using a multiple-case study methodology underpinned by the frameworks of institutional isomorphism, bandwagon pressures and information asymmetry. Interviews were carried out with 17 business school deans; five deans of accredited schools in Europe, five deans of accredited schools in the United States of America and seven business school deans in New Zealand. All the New Zealand schools were either accredited, formally in the process of seeking accreditation or about to enter the application stage. The results provide supporting evidence for the notion that business schools are seeking accreditation in order to achieve legitimacy benefits rather than performance benefits, and that intangible benefits are seen as having more importance than the costs involved with achieving accreditation. It was also found that where the focus is at an international level, accreditation is found to be underpinned by information asymmetries whereby schools are seeking to gain legitimacy by providing signals to the market regarding their quality. At a regional or national level information regarding quality is more well known and, instead, isomorphic and bandwagon pressures become evident as the pathway towards legitimacy. This study will be of value to business school deans in understanding the forces they are being subjected to when considering the value of seeking international accreditation. The results provide an understanding of why, in the absence of a formal business case, a school may consider such a move, or may have entered the process without the hard data that identifies the costs and estimates the benefits in a measurable way. In this regard it will also be of value to all staff of business schools, and of the wider organisation, to understand the phenomenon that is accreditation.

Capstone courses are well embedded into the curriculum of undergraduate programs in Colleges of Business and are often used to assess program outcomes and curricular goals. Assessment of best practices of Capstone programs and skills within Capstone courses are examined as assurance of learning requirements under AACSB mandates. The conceptual framework of problem-based learning serves as the foundation for national Capstone course models with student-centered pedagogies that enhance learning about a subject through the experience of problem solving by using thinking strategies and domain knowledge. Rubrics assess student mastery of content, professionalism, organization, language structure and presentation skills. The main purpose of this study was to determine to what extent students provided evidence of skills and competencies, as demonstrated through Capstone projects and presentations at a large metropolitan university in Central Florida, which were required to meet the needs of potential employers. Using focus group research, this study examined and interpreted Capstone student papers and presentations to determine to what extent the skill sets evidenced were sufficient for hiring entry-level positions in community business partners' respective organizations. This study served to contribute to an understanding of the factors that should be embedded in course design, linking assignments to course objectives, and overall curricular goals in order to fulfill assurance of learning requirements as established by AACSB mandates.

Since the trend of uprising awareness of sustainability in which strives for the balance of environmental protection, economic growth as well as social concern is mentioned and further discussed in important events before and slowly put into enforcement, neither industry nor education can ignore from this trend. This paper will contribute to address the important issues: 1. Discussing the background of sustainability issues from the important historical events and scholars points of view. 2. Endeavoring in discovering the current efforts made of sustainability by industries and educational institutes 3. Understanding sustainability education status applied in business and engineering schools in two accredited systems AACSB (The Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business), and ABET(Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology) in United States by analyzing the sustainability-related courses difference among academic backgrounds (accredited systems), regions, school ranking, undergraduate and graduate levels, topics as well as teaching methods. 4. Comparing the result of web-based survey between AACSB 460 accredited business school and ABET 382 engineering schools as well as to the similar sustainability-related course in previous studies based on questionnaire or web-based surveys. The results are as follows: 1. ABET accredited engineering school shows much more aggressiveness on providing sustainability-related courses, especially in west region. 2. Our web content analysis in both AACSB and ABET have lower result than questionnaire survey studies before. 3. Top 100 ranked school in both colleges have more than twice related course; however, AACSB places related courses on graduate level with compulsory and ABET tends to put on undergraduate level with electives. 4. Regarding to the sustainability issues, AACSB focus moral thinking &culture diversity while ABET endeavors in management of natural resource 5. Both colleges adopt most of traditional teaching methods: 61 % of AACSB have case study and discussion and 80 % of ABET use textbooks and assignments At the end, this study will apply the results to business practitioners, enables them have an understanding about their recruited professionals and students who have received which kinds of related subjects and issues taught in the school. For educators, the study provides them the comparisons in leading universities to examine their existing program for sustainability so as to enrich the cross-institutional academic exchanges.

The competitiveness of the graduate business education market; concerns over graduate program relevance; and decreased provincial funding are placing destabilizing pressures on the current graduate business program offerings in business schools promoting the possibility of institutional change. Despite most academic institutions embracing online education as an option to respond, Canadian AACSB accredited business schools have not moved in this direction. The purpose of this research study was to explore the reasons for the limited adoption of online education in Canadian AACSB accredited business schools. The theoretical lens framing this research study was Institutional theory. A qualitative multiple case study research design was carried out with four Canadian AACSB accredited business schools participating. The main data collection method was semi-structured interviews with senior administration and faculty. This study revealed that the constraining forces were stronger than the enabling forces towards adoption, ultimately leading to limited adoption. The enabling forces identified were: market expansion opportunities; cost and infrastructure savings; and student demand for more online education. The constraining forces identified were: the lack of face-to-face interaction; and development and delivery cost. An examination of stakeholder influence found faculty resistance, to hold the strongest influence on organizational decision making in these business schools. Faculty resistance was concentrated mainly towards fully online graduate programs with greater acceptance for the hybrid format. The Institutional theory lens helped to understand that institutional change in academic institutions is difficult, due to the isomorphic forces acting as constraining forces to institutional change. This rendered the finding that the lack of legitimacy of this delivery medium was the main reason for the limited adoption of online education. A number of significant contributions to research in the areas of online education and institutional change in academic institutions; practical implications; and suggestions for future research in this area were also provided.

Les objectifs de la thèse sont de comprendre : 1) les mécanismes de diffusion, d’adoption et d’institutionnalisation des accréditations internationales, 2) les comportements stratégiques mobilisés à l’égard notamment du processus initial d’accréditation institutionnelle AACSB, 3) les réponses stratégiques et organisationnelles pour gérer les demandes institutionnelles conflictuelles provoquées par les injonctions des 21 standards AACSB (2003) et 4) les changements opérés en vue de l’alignement aux injonctions du processus initial prescrit et des 21 standards AACSB (2003). Dans une perspective néo-institutionnaliste, nous mobilisons un cadre d’analyse alliant les comportements stratégiques et le changement institutionnel. Pour répondre aux objectifs de la recherche, une étude de cas longitudinale rétrospective et en temps réel sur 15 ans d’une business school universitaire française est menée. Les résultats de la recherche permettent d’enrichir notamment le cadre d’analyse d’Oliver (1991) d’une sixième réponse stratégique et de trois tactiques dans le cas d’un processus initial d’accréditation institutionnelle AACSB. / This research aims to understand: 1) the mechanisms of diffusion, adoption and institutionalization of international accreditations, 2) the strategic behaviors adopted to respond to the initial AACSB accreditation process, 3) the strategic and organizational responses to the conflictual demands originated by the 21 AACSB 2003 standards and 4) the changes occurred in order to ensure the organizations’ alignment to the 21 AACSB 2003 standards and to the required process.Based on a neo-institutional perspective, we used two conceptual frameworks about strategic responses and institutional change. In order to comply with our objectives, we have conducted a 15-year longitudinal case study both retrospectively and in real time within the only French business school operating inside a university. The principal result of the research is the identification of a 6th new strategic response for Oliver’s (1991) framework as well as three tactics to be adopted in the initial AACSB accreditation process.

Online education has changed the way education is delivered. Higher education has been the leader of providing online education. Currently, the fastest growing online degree program in higher education is a Master of Business Administration (MBA) degree. This demand is due to employees who are looking to move up in their career but who are not able to attend school full-time. Many accredited not-for-profit business schools as well as for-profit universities have launched their own online business degree programs to meet this demand. This report aims to review best practices for online business degree programs. It will describe the evolution of distance education as it pertains to higher education, the difference between campus, online and hybrid mode and the types of online learning. This report also identifies how higher education and business schools are providing online education and are competing with for-profit universities and explains why Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) accreditation is important. I will also discuss the benefits of delivering online business degree programs as well as proves the challenges that administration, students and faculty face in this process. Through analysis of existing research studies, the report will explain which best practices administration, faculty and students can adopt in order to offer and participate in a successful online business degree program. / text