SBA and ICS gain International Business School Accreditation from AACSB
December 22, 2021
In July 2021, Hitotsubashi University’s Graduate School of Business Administration – School of Business Administration and Faculty of Commerce and Management (SBA) and the Graduate School of Business Administration – School of International Corporate Strategy (ICS) were both accredited by AACSB International. Renowned as a global association for the accreditation of business education programs, AACSB (The Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business) has accredited 910 institutions in 58 countries (as of July 2021). Hitotsubashi University is the sixth institution in Japan to receive AACSB accreditation, and the first among national universities in Japan. Only around 5% of all business schools globally are accredited by the AACSB. For this article we asked those in charge of the AACSB accreditation – Professor Toshihiko Kato (Dean) and Professor Takeshi Matsui of SBA, and Professor Kazuo Ichijo (Dean) of ICS – about the significance of accreditation and the process leading to it.
Significance of AACSB Accreditation
Professor Toshihiko Kato, Dean, School of Business Administration, Graduate School of Business Administration
Professor Kato has the following to say about the significance of this international accreditation: “The accreditation demonstrates that the management education we provide is in accordance with international standards. Alongside those elements that are unique to Hitotsubashi University, I think this accreditation will help us to communicate the attractions of our educational programs. It will also make us easier to enter into exchange agreements with other business schools across the world.”
Professor Ichijo of ICS reflects similarly as follows: “In order to be a business school that is recognized globally, we need to be listed in the international rankings, and obtaining international accreditation from organizations such as AACSB is essential for this purpose. AACSB accreditation has been a cherished wish of mine ever since 2014 when I became Dean of the Graduate School of International Corporate Strategy [prior to reorganization; current position is Dean of the School of ICS, Graduate School of Business Administration]. Becoming the first national or public university in Japan to be accredited is an eloquent expression of Hitotsubashi University’s capabilities and high standards. Another important benefit is that accreditation will add further status to the academic credentials that students receive from us.”
The Accreditation Process
Hitotsubashi University’s SBA and ICS operate somewhat independently from one another, and each school thus undertook the process of AACSB accreditation separately. Moreover, SBA comprises both the graduate-level School of Business Administration and the undergraduate Faculty of Commerce and Management, which are operated on an integrated basis, so a combined accreditation process was pursued for these two entities.
The accreditation process was a lengthy one. In SBA, for example, it took more than six years from initiation in April 2015 under the Graduate School of Commerce and Management, to completion in July 2021. A truly massive volume of work was undertaken during this period, including visits and guidance from a “mentor” (deans of graduate schools and colleges at overseas universities that have already gained accreditation), establishment of systematic approaches to ensure the Assurance of Learning, restructuring of the curriculum to align with global standards, preparation and submission of self-evaluation reports detailing a wide range of matters from educational program content and research outputs of individual faculty members through to school-level strategies and financials, and improvement of education and research structures in accordance with feedback on the reports. SBA and ICS each developed organizational structures, including specialist staff, in order to handle this heavy workload.
A program of reform and renovation continued undiminished during this accreditation process, including the merger of the former Graduate School of Commerce and Management and former Graduate School of International Corporate Strategy, which had previously been responsible for management education at Hitotsubashi University, into a single Graduate School of Business Administration (also known as the Hitotsubashi University Business School, or HUB) in April 2018. This period also saw the establishment of a new Business Administration Program, an MBA program designed for people working at the front lines of business and offered on weekday evenings at the University’s Chiyoda Campus.
“It was a real challenge to undertake major structural reforms at the same time as pressing ahead with the accreditation process,” reflects Professor Kato. “But we knew it was something we would inevitably have to face if we wanted to continue developing as a top-class institution of management education and research.”
Responding to Diverse Demands
Rather than a simple evaluation of educational content against a uniform set of standards, the AACSB accreditation process involves assessment of the validity of the school’s educational program in line with its stated mission, as well as a detailed review of the organizational capabilities and structures that underpin the program.
One example is the research standards of faculty members. Ever since its original establishment as the Commercial Training School, Hitotsubashi University has maintained its leadership position in management education and research in Japan. However, the standards of excellence in research are changing year by year, both within Japan and internationally. Recent years have seen the advancement of globalization even in the social science field, and a shift in emphasis from specialist books to academic journal articles as the medium for the publication of research findings. For Hitotsubashi University, especially in light of its responsibility for training the next generation of researchers, the AACSB accreditation process demanded high global standards of research.
Owing to its position at the front lines of the management field, however, Hitotsubashi University cannot afford an exclusive focus on research that is recognized only in academic niches. It is equally crucial for the university to deliver high-quality, practical education in MBA and executive programs and the like. Neither can the university ignore its relationships with or impact on wider society. It must satisfy a variety of potentially conflicting demands simultaneously.
“In the accreditation process, there were more than a few problems that required trade-offs to be made, and we expended considerable effort on resolving them,” acknowledges Professor Kato.
Impact Drives Fundamental Cultural Change
Professor Kazuo Ichijo, Dean, School of International Corporate Strategy, Graduate School of Business Administration
Similarly, Professor Ichijo recalls that “the demands extended to a fundamental redesign of the culture of ICS.” This was because ICS had previously placed utmost priority on its education quality, in the form of intensive, small-group classes taught in a 100% English environment.
“This meant that faculty members couldn’t easily devote time or energy to research,” says Professor Ichijo. “The SA (Scholarly Academics) ratio (the proportion of faculty members overall who hold PhDs and have high research output) was around one half at most. On their first visit to Hitotsubashi, the accreditation mentors told us that the ratio was ‘too low,’ which was completely unexpected. We probably hadn’t been sufficiently aware of what was expected, but in any case, raising our SA ratio by 20% was close to impossible.”
The number of full-time faculty members in ICS, which is committed to small-group education, is limited to around 15. It was not possible simply to appoint more SA faculty, nor to undertake a drastic substitution of existing faculty. The only options available took both time and effort, such as encouraging non-SA faculty to produce more research papers, and filling positioned vacated by retiring faculty with SA faculty only.
“It renewed our awareness that we couldn’t be a leading global business school unless we maintained high levels of research, not just education,” says Professor Ichijo. “It was a tough six years, but the result is that the faculty members who achieved SA status, and ICS as a whole, are now recognized in both name and substance as maintaining the highest global standards. This is a major achievement.”
High Praise for Initiatives including “Seminar Education from First Year”
Other facets were evaluated highly in the AACSB accreditation process. One of these was the Hitotsubashi University tradition of “seminar education.”
“Small-group education comes with a high workload,” says Professor Matsui. “So very few universities anywhere in the world offer it consistently from the first year of the undergraduate curriculum right through to the MBA and doctoral level. We were evaluated very highly on this point.”
Other facets that earned high praise included the university’s history of leadership within Japan, and the depth of its connections with industry through the Josuikai (Alumni Association) and the like.
“ICS’s innovative programs were evaluated highly,” says Professor Ichijo. “These included our global networking activities through the GNAM (Global Network for Advanced Management) framework for collaboration among 32 of the world’s leading business schools, the BEST alliance of top business schools in Japan, China and Korea, and our double degree programs.
Putting Mission Statements into Practice
One focal issue in AACSB accreditation is how the school gives a practical shape to its own mission statement. SBA and ICS each have their own distinct mission statements.
In SBA, for example, the mission statement is as follows:
We foster Captains of Industry who create value for business and serve communities in Asia.
This statement is composed of three elements:
(1) LEADERSHIP (“foster Captains of Industry”): To educate leaders with insightful knowledge and effective communication skills.
(2) INNOVATION (“create value for business”): To develop professionals with creativity and advanced professional skills.
(3) INTEGRITY (“serve communities”): To foster community-minded citizens who think beyond themselves and apply global perspectives.
The school needed to clarify how and in what parts of its curriculum are nurtured and strengthened in each of these elements. “Integrity,” for example, is not taught in any specific course, but rather through the addition in every course of a module that deals with issues of corporate ethics and relations with society.
“Of course we already had classes that touched on topics like CSR (corporate social responsibility) and corporate ethics,” says Professor Kato. “But those topics were not taught systematically as a component of the curriculum. We had assumed that Japanese people were already equipped with some sense of ethics, but this assumption was seen as naïve by the AACSB standards, so we decided to address these topics explicitly in all our courses.”
Opportunity to Re-assess Quality Every Five Years
Professor Takeshi Matsui, Graduate School of Business Administration
As explained earlier, after embarking on the AACSB accreditation process, SBA and ICS were re-organized into the Graduate School of Business Administration (Hitotsubashi University Business School: HUB).
“As part of the accreditation process, ICS and SBA began exchanging information frequently and supporting each other,” says Professor Ichijo. “So in the end the AACSB played a positive role in bringing the two schools together.”
Business schools that are members of the AACSB are required in principle to attend annual meetings, conferences, and other gatherings held overseas. Participation comes at a cost in terms of both time and money, but also promises benefits such as interacting and exchanging information with other world-class business schools, and bolstering the international presence of our school.
Schools accredited by the AACSB must undergo re-accreditation once every five years.
“To be honest, we had a tough time because we were novices and there were many things we didn’t understand,” says Professor Matsui. “But I think things will proceed a little more smoothly the second and subsequent times we go through the accreditation process. I hope it will be an opportunity for us to re-assess and improve the quality of our education and research at five-year intervals.”
AACSB accreditation is surely a significant step forward in enabling the high quality of education and research at SBA and ICS to be more widely appreciated by students, researchers, and businesspeople both within Japan and internationally.
