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Value in business school accreditation: The relationship between business school accreditation and business student enrollment
Dunleavy, Aidan Edward
Dunleavy, Aidan Edward
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Abstract
Specialized (programmatic) accreditation of U.S. business schools has become more widespread in recent years, particularly given the increased emphasis on accrediting business schools at teaching institutions. As of 2016, nearly 40% of degree-seeking institutions that enrolled business students were accredited by one of three U.S. based business accreditors. Yet, while there is a reasonable volume of literature noting value in business school accreditation relative to quality (e.g., as it relates to student learning), there is scant research demonstrating value relative to enrollment. Such research could help support more robust cost-effectiveness analyses of seeking business school accreditation. The present study, grounded in general systems theory, institutional theory, and college choice theory, investigated the relationship between business school accreditation and business student enrollment. This causal-comparative study utilized national, publicly available datasets and fixed effects regression models to investigate changes in business student enrollment at institutions with accredited business schools before and after receiving accreditation. In addition to presenting descriptive statistics that highlight the proliferation of business school accreditation, the present study’s fixed effects regression analyses revealed: (1) a statistically significant, positive relationship between AACSB accreditation and undergraduate business student enrollment, (2) statistically significant, positive relationships between both ACBSP accreditation and IACBE accreditation and graduate business student enrollment, and (3) statistically significant, positive relationships between ACBSP accreditation and the ratio of business student enrollment to overall student enrollment at both the undergraduate and graduate enrollment levels.
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Date
2021-01-01
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University of Kansas
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This item contains archived web content.
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Dunleavy_ku_0099D_18107_DATA_1.pdf
Adobe PDF, 1.19 MB
- Embargoed until 2171-05-31
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Keywords
Higher education, Higher education administration, AACSB, ACBSP, accreditation, business school accreditation, enrollment, IACBE