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Preface
AACSB Learning Standards Tags
What Is the AACSB?

The Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) is a nonprofit corporation of
educational institutions, corporations, and other organizations devoted to the promotion and im-
provement of higher education in business administration and accounting. A collegiate institution
offering degrees in business administration or accounting may volunteer for AACSB accreditation
review. The AACSB makes initial accreditation decisions and conducts periodic reviews to promote
continuous quality improvement in management education. Pearson Education is a proud mem-
ber of the AACSB and is pleased to provide advice to help you apply AACSB Learning Standards.

What Are AACSB Learning Standards?

One of the criteria for AACSB accreditation is the quality of the curricula. Although no specific
courses are required, the AACSB expects a curriculum to include learning experiences in such
areas as:
• Communication Abilities
• Ethical Understanding and Reasoning Abilities
• Analytic Skills
• Use of Information Technology
• Dynamics of the Global Economy
• Multicultural and Diversity Understanding
• Reflective Thinking Skills

These seven categories are AACSB Learning Standards. Questions that test skills relevant to these
standards are tagged with the appropriate standard. For example, a question testing the moral
questions associated with externalities would receive the Ethical Understanding tag.

How Can I Use These Tags?
Tagged questions help you measure whether students are grasping the course content that aligns
with AACSB guidelines. In addition, the tagged questions may help to identify potential applica-
tions of these skills. This, in turn, may suggest enrichment activities or other educational experi-
ences to help students achieve these goals.

Acknowledgments

First, we wish to thank Earl McKinney, professor of information systems at Bowling Green
University and author of Processes, Systems, and Information, for many hours of insightful conver-
sation about the role of processes in this MIS course as well as for his deep insights into the theory
of information. We also thank David Auer of Western Washington University for help with data
communications technology and Jeffrey Proudfoot of Bentley University for his insights on infor-
mation security.
Many thanks as well to Jeff Gains of San Jose State University for helpful feedback about prior
editions of this text; Jeff’s comments have strongly influenced revisions for years. Also, a special
thanks to Harry Reif at James Madison University for most insightful observations about ways to
improve this text.
At Microsoft, we are grateful for the help of Randy Guthrie, who supports MIS professors in
many ways, including facilitating use of DreamSpark as well as giving many presentations to
students. Also, we thank Rob Howard for conversations and consulting about SharePoint and
SharePoint Designer and Steve Fox for helpful conversations about both SharePoint and Microsoft