<p>
[quote]
At the end of the day, AACSB? It only matters if you are going to a school that doesn't have a strong enough reputation to stand on its own merit.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>That's exactly right, and parallels the literature on standardization processes in general. For example, in the tech industry, strong players generally have little incentive to embrace industry standards, as they can create their own 'de-facto' standards through their sheer market power. Microsoft, for example, has often times been criticized for not following industry standards, but they can do that because of their power over the market. Intel does the same. Back in the old days, it was IBM that routinely flouted industry standards, preferring to push its own suite of products. It is generally the weak players who are the ones who gain the most value from a standardization process. For example, many technical standards bodies exist to counter the strength of Microsoft and Intel. You can see the same thing in the arena of politics. While I don't want to get into a political argument, you can see that the US often times flouts the will of the UN, and doesn't even bother to recognize the authority of other international bodies such as the International Criminal Court, but that's basically because, frankly, the US is strong enough to ignore those bodies. Within the European Union, strong members like France, the UK, and Germany get away with ignoring rules that other members must abide by for fear of penalty. For example, France and Germany run budget deficits that exceed the boundary pact set by the European Central Bank, but it's doubtful that the ECB will be able to do anything about it.</p>
<p>So the fact is, HBS, and schools of that caliber are able to get away with ignoring the tenets of the AACSB because, frankly, they can. They have that power. It's not fair, but hey, life is not fair. Strong players can get away with things that weak players cannot, and that's just a truism of life. </p>
<p>I would also refocus the discussion on a point I made before, which is that sometimes accreditation and standardization can be bad, in the sense that they prevent society from reaching optimal efficiency. For example, standardization processes often times reduce innovation. When you have a accreditation committee making decisions, you are reducing the impact that the free market can have in terms of feedback to the process. In essence, committees often times function as political versions of central planning, and I think we have seen in history that central planning is a rather poor way to run a flexible organization, chiefly because it slows the ability of an organization to respond to the market. </p>
<p>Now, I also agree that accreditation bodies can sometimes also increase market efficiency, especially for intangible goods like education, by sending a signal to the market that a particular brand of education has passed certain checkpoints. This does reduce information asymmetries, which can prevent market failures. But schools like HBS, Wharton, Stanford, and the like have strong brand names and thus are ALREADY sending strong signals to the market. It is unlikely that they need the additional accreditation 'signal'. I agree that a school like Frostburg State will need the accreditation signal in order to form the market, but does Harvard need it? Unlikely.</p>