The Association of MBAs (AMBA) is a global organisation headquartered in

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

, UK. It was founded in 1967 with the primary objective of accrediting Master of Business Administration (

MBA A Master of Business Administration (MBA) is a professional degree focused on business administration. The core courses in an MBA program cover various areas of business administration; elective courses may allow further study in a particular a ...

) programs.

Roles

Based in London, AMBA is one of the three main global accreditation bodies in business education (see

triple accreditation Triple accreditation (also known as the triple crown) refers to a business school being accredited by all three leading international accreditation organizations: the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) in the US, the ...

) and styles itself as the world's impartial authority on postgraduate management education. It differs from

AACSB The Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) is an American professional and accreditation organization. It was founded as the American Assembly of Collegiate Schools of Business in 1916 to provide accreditation to business ...

in the US and

EQUIS The EFMD Quality Improvement System (EQUIS) is a business school accreditation managed by Brussels based EFMD. It provides accreditation for higher education institutions of management and business administration and is run by the European Fou ...

Brussels Brussels, officially the Brussels-Capital Region, (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) is a Communities, regions and language areas of Belgium#Regions, region of Belgium comprising #Municipalit ...

as it accredits a school's portfolio of postgraduate management programmes but does not accredit undergraduate programmes. AMBA accredits approximately 2% of the world's business schools, and is the most international of the three organisations having accredited schools headquartered in 54 countries, compared with the 52 for AACSB and 38 for EQUIS. Business schools can become associated with AMBA by applying for accreditation or by applying to be part of the AMBA Development Network. All MBA students and alumni of the 277 accredited member schools receive free life-long individual AMBA membership. AMBA also accredits generalist BBA programmes,

programmes and DBA programmes, and admits as members students and graduates thereof. AMBA's long-serving president until 2017 was the late Sir Paul Judge, the founding benefactor of

Cambridge Judge Business School Cambridge Judge Business School is the business school of the University of Cambridge. The School is a provider of management education. It is named after Sir Paul Judge, a founding benefactor of the school. The School is a department of the u ...

in Cambridge, UK. AMBA's current Chief Executive is Andrew Main Wilson, who joined the organisation from the

Institute of Directors The Institute of Directors (IoD) is a British professional organisation for company directors, senior business leaders and entrepreneurs. It is the UK's longest running organisation for professional leaders, having been founded in 1903 and inco ...

in 2013. Bodo Schlegelmilch was elected Chairman of the AMBA Board of Trustees in 2018.

History

The Association of MBAs was founded in 1967 as an MBA alumni club by eight UK graduates from

Harvard Business School Harvard Business School (HBS) is the graduate school, graduate business school of Harvard University, a Private university, private Ivy League research university. Located in Allston, Massachusetts, HBS owns Harvard Business Publishing, which p ...

, Wharton,

Stanford Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University, is a private research university in Stanford, California, United States. It was founded in 1885 by railroad magnate Leland Stanford (the eighth governor of and th ...

and Columbia, and two graduates from the first intake of

London Business School London Business School (LBS) is a business school and a constituent college of the federal University of London. LBS was founded in 1964 and awards post-graduate degrees (Master's degree, Master's degrees in management and finance, Master of B ...

. The founders saw a lack of awareness in

Europe Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...

of the value of the MBA degree, which at that time was primarily an American qualification. They decided to form a lobby and membership group to promote the benefits of postgraduate business education, under the name of Business Graduates Association (BGA). The organisation's development helped shape the growth of management education in Europe and the UK and coincided with the setting up and growth of

and

Manchester Business School Alliance Manchester Business School (Alliance MBS) is the business school of the University of Manchester in Manchester, England. It is one of the oldest business schools in the UK, and provides education to undergraduates, postgraduates and e ...

in Britain. The Association's first Director General was Vice-Admiral

David Clutterbuck Vice-Admiral Sir David Granville Clutterbuck (25 January 1913 – 13 December 2008) was a Royal Navy officer who became NATO's Deputy Supreme Allied Commander Atlantic in 1966. Naval career Educated at , Clutterbuck joined the Royal Navy in 192 ...

who assumed this position in 1969. In 1983 BGA began to accredit the growing number of

programmes, while preserving its functions as a membership organization. BGA was renamed Association of MBAs in 1987. Until 2017, AMBA's president was the late Sir Paul Judge, who helped establish

Cambridge University The University of Cambridge is a Public university, public collegiate university, collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209, the University of Cambridge is the List of oldest universities in continuous operation, wo ...

in the early 1990s.

Activities

Accreditation

The Association of MBAs accredits MBA, MBM and DBA degree programmes. When a school applies for accreditation for its MBA programmes, AMBA requires that the entire portfolio of MBA programmes be put up for consideration and will award accreditation only if all programmes meet its criteria (though the school pays the same fee regardless of the number of programmes being reviewed). The Association's process of accrediting a school's MBA programmes portfolio includes reviewing compliance AMBA's criteria, most of them qualitative rather than quantitative. The criteria fall into seven dimensions: history and development of the institution; facilities and libraries; teaching faculty, teaching standards and research track record; programme administration, career and alumni services; student admission standards, diversity and cohort size; curriculum content, programme mode and duration; and learning outcomes. Some of the key AMBA criteria for the accreditation of an MBA programme include: * all admitted students should have at least three years of full-time post-graduation work experience upon the start of the MBA course (''a criterion which the vast majority of the top US business schools cannot meet as US MBA programmes sometimes admit applicants with only a bachelor's degree and no work experience''); * a new school applying for accreditation should have a track record of at least three years of graduating MBA students before it can be accredited; * an MBA programme should have a cohort size of at least 20 students; * at least 50% of the faculty of an MBA programme (including visiting faculty as part of the total) are expected to have PhD degrees; and * a full-time MBA curriculum should contain no less than 500 contact (scheduled faculty-mediated) hours and a distance-learning MBA programme should have no less than 120 synchronous contact hours.

Events

AMBA holds three annual conferences for business school deans and directors:Events for business schools - Association of MBAs
Mbaworld.com. Retrieved on 2013-08-12. a Global Conference, an Asia Pacific Conference, and a Latin America Conference. Participation is open to both accredited and non-accredited schools. AMBA also hosts an annual Gala Dinner in London, which is open only to accredited schools. AMBA organises two annual global forums with the purpose of development and training for specific functions within AMBA-accredited business schools such as accreditation managers; programme managers; marketing, admissions, alumni and development staff. AMBA also organises webinars, lectures and networking events on a regular basis catering to MBA alumni, current MBA students, prospective MBA students and business school admissions departments. These on-campus events are held at accredited business schools and often feature distinguished speakers and practitioners in fields such as leadership, entrepreneurship and innovation.

Notes and references

External links

*
Accredited schools and logos on AMBA's website

Press releases and latest news on AMBA's website
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Business education in the United Kingdom Higher education accreditation Higher education organisations based in the United Kingdom International college and university associations and consortia International organisations based in London Non-profit organisations based in London Organisations based in the City of London Organizations established in 1967