Chapter 3: Moving Beyond The Mission Statement To Action

Since 1991, AACSB International has adopted an approach requiring AACSBaccredited schools to be mission driven. The mission of a business program is “a single statement or set of statements serving as a guide for the school and its stakeholders … the mission guides decision making and identifies distinguishing characteristics, attributes, focus areas, priorities, etc., that indicate how the school positions itself among the international community of business schools.”¹

Standard 1 goes on to say “distinctiveness does not imply that the business school must somehow be different from all other AACSB-accredited business schools.” Nonetheless, mission statements at well-regarded business schools such as Baylor, Santa Clara, Miami (Ohio), Loyola, Duke, and Texas A&M have remarkably similar language in their mission statements: