Accreditation Results 2019

I. The ABEST21 Comprehensive Review

1. ABEST21 Accreditation Result

“ABEST21 (THE ALLIANCE ON BUSINESS EDUCATION AND SCHOLARSHIP FOR TOMORROW, a 21st century organization) hereby certifies that MASTER OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION PROGRAM of the SCHOOL OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION, NORTHEASTERN UNIVERSITY, PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC OF CHINA has generally met ABEST21 Management Accreditation Standards and the quality maintenance and improvement of education and research in the aforementioned program are promising and good. Accreditation commences April 1, 2019 for a five-year period.

2. Comprehensive Review

The School of Business Administration in NEU (SBA, NEU) started to offer MBA Program (MBA, NEU) in 1968. The mission of NEU is “to be built into a “World Class University” with Chinese characteristics, and to lead in the new industrialization process in China.” The MBA NEU (hereafter “the School”) needs to have its own mission statement in harmony with missions of SBA as well as NEU.
The recent rapid economic development in China is the most positive condition that calls for many management talents with international perspectives.
The School is taking some vigorous steps in response to the demand:

• It organizes its curriculum in a ‘modular customized’ manner for students from different industries and different backgrounds.
• The MBA education now advocates social responsibility and spirit of ethics. The curriculum reflects, in many aspects, the new emphasis on these ideas.
• The Sponsorship for MBA Teaching Case Projects is introduced for encouraging faculty members to cultivate their teaching resources.
• It is improving faculty training and exchange cooperation systems.
• The School launched International MBA program in 2015, and has about 60 international students enrolled by 2017.

The launching of the International program (IMBA) can be viewed as a landmark step toward a further globalization of the School’s MBA education. At present, however, some disconnects between the regular MBA and the new IMBA are naturally visible in terms of the faculty profiles and education contents offered in these two programs. Synergy between these two is yet to be cultivated. It is greatly expected that the School makes a step toward further integrating the two programs.

3. Good Practice in Management Education

1) Title of Good Practice in Management Education

Business Education in transition from domestic to global perspectives

2) Reason for selecting the title stated above

Guided by NEU mission of building a “World Class University” with Chinese characteristics, the MBA program in the School of Business Administration in NEU has traditionally aimed at cultivating professional businessmen who play a leading role in the process of China’s new industrialization. The School is now in the process of introducing new international aspects and visions in its management education. These initiatives are noteworthy.

4. Matter to be noted

The SCR Report provides little information on faculty profiles for both MBA and IMBA programs, except that there are 110 full time faculty members in NEU’s business school that has 11 departments with a total of 3276 students, including 1548 undergraduates and 575 MBA students.
The following figures, if provided, would have helped greatly the PRT to perceive clearer picture of the quality of education at the School:

• How many of those 110 faculty members are assigned to MBA and IMBA programs and what are their teaching areas.
• The academic achievements, practical experiences and language proficiency of those who are mainly in charge of MBA and IMBA.
  (It would be fine to mask individual names and identities in providing the data above.)

The following matters are to be noted as to the International MBA program.
The SCR identifies some weaknesses of the faculty as follows.

• There is a lack of MBA lecturers with both academic and professional experience.
• The number of teachers with oversea study and/or working experience is relatively weak.

This analysis prompts some questions as follows.
Is the International MBA program taught by additional faculty members with enhanced expertise as well as language proficiency?
Is there an IMBA curriculum that is different and separated from the regular MBA curriculum that is mainly for native Chinese students?
It is hard to imagine that the international students are educated and trained within the same regular MBA curriculum and by the same teachers.

5. The Peer Review Team

6. The Peer Review Schedule

II. “Self-Check/Self-Evaluation Analysis” Review

1. The School’s Mission Statement and Strategies

1) The School’s Mission Statement

Northeastern University (NEU) states its mission to be a “World-class University (WCU) with Chinese Characteristics.”
The School of Business Administration sets their mission as “Preparing the students as professional businessmen, and striving to provide application services to the local and national economy with a focus on China, particularly on Northeast region’s economic and social development.” The School has developed the mission statement for the MBA Education Program: NEU MBA Program is dedicated to cultivating business elites with global vision, innovative entrepreneurship, local management wisdom, and active social responsibility.

2) The School’s Strategies for Quality Improvement

In a genuine realization of current weaknesses of NEU MBA program, the School identifies the following key parts as its improvement strategy.

• Improve faculty members’ theoretical competence, while focusing on training them to be ‘cross functional experts’ in both theoretical teaching and practical teaching.
• Form a faculty body with a solid theoretical foundation and an international perspective.
• Enhance international recognition and reputation, by applying for international accreditations step by step, and build cooperative relationships with world-famous universities.
• Improve MBA applicants’ profile, in particular, attract more experienced applicants.

NEU MBA is preparing for globalization. It defines competencies for their resources, develops program and policies, has plans for cooperation and for international accreditation.　The School has clear strategies to address it weaknesses.

3) Humanizing the School’s Management Education

In an effort to humanize its programs, the School (MBA Program, NEU) plans to encourage transition from knowledge transfer focus to ability training focus.
In line with this, the following plans and practices are notable.

• The School aims to deliver a large number of high-quality management talents for society, especially for the revitalization of the old industrial bases in Northeast China.
• MBA education program promotes and leads students to participate in innovation and entrepreneurship practices.
• MBA education program advocates and practices social responsibility
• MBA education program attaches importance to students’ personality and flexible development needs.
• MBA students are free to choose courses of interest during overseas academic exchange and study, and the credits thus obtained are recognized.
• Flexible credit system is implemented in MBA program to meet the needs of students’ autonomous learning and personality development.

The Report shows that the School is practicing innovative learning and teaching methods and ideas. However, all these innovative practices need to be balanced with quality control to ensure that the program goals and requirements are achieved.
The MBA program also advocates and practices social responsibility with notable activities by students and staff.

4) Collaborating with Industries in Management Education

The MBA education programs of Northeastern University are, reportedly, focused on Northeast Region, and closely aligned with the industry characteristics of the area and the needs for the regional talents. A batch of standardized bases are established to meet the needs of personnel training in the Northeast Region.
The report shows that the School is actively engaged with the industry in many aspects such as organizing industry-related conferences and events, producing high-quality practical teaching cases, conducting thematic lectures, doing research and consulting.
The MBA Alumni Association is actively building interactive platform bridging the alumni and students in the industry collaboration activities.

5) Globalizing the School’s Management Education

The School’s following initiatives for globalizing its education are noteworthy:

• The School has introduced ‘Management Game’ imported from Carnegie Mellon University in its curriculum.
• The School carries out a research project, Asian MBA curriculum system development, through international cooperation.
• The School launched International MBA program in 2015. It recruited 16 international students in 2015, 26 students in 2016 and 15 students in 2017.

The report however doesn’t mention about the recruitment of foreign faculty members for globalizing the School’s faculty.

2. The School’s Educational and Research Activities

Chapter 1 Internal Quality Assurance

Standard 1: Administration and Governance

Criterion 1-1: administrative system

With the development of the International MBA (IMBA), the School realizes that there are currently plenty of difficulties in terms of daily teaching and management of this program due to the cultural and cognitive differences between foreign students and local ones. It is trying to set up a special department to be responsible for the management of the international class.

Criterion 1-4: an appropriate administrative body

Although the administrative management system of the MBA Course Project Management Center is relatively complete, the School recognizes that the number of employees is limited. It is indeed advisable that the number of staff members is increased for better performance in the functions of enrolling, teaching, managing students and other links.

Criterion 1-5: Audit function of oversight (external evaluation system)

As identified in the “Improvement issues,” the School strives to optimize the governance system, improve policies and regulations, and provide guarantees for promoting the governance of the School and preventing decision-making risk.
The School also has a strong relationship with the Party and Government for decision making on major policies and issues related to teaching, research and administrative matters. Regular academic committees are also being held for routine and operational issues. Feedback from various committees is also collected. The School could also consider to obtain feedback from other stakeholders such as students and alumni.
The results of administrative matters were well communicated to the relevant parties via various tools and methods such as website, electronic screen, notice boards and emails.
Besides, there is a governance system for administrative operations and educational and research activities. The administrative operations are also reviewed systematically and periodically. In view of the increasing number of foreign students, the administrative staff strength for MBA Center should be increased.
Staff members are also being sponsored to attend various forums and conferences to improve their administrative skills and to learn about the latest developments in MBA education in China.

Standard 2: Self-Check/Self-Evaluation

Criterion 2-1: Systematic and periodic self-check/self-evaluation mechanism

In the “Improvement issues,” it is recognized that an MBA special assessment/certification working group needs to be set up.

Criterion 2-3: Self-check for the improvement of education quality

Up to now, self-check has been carried out through external evaluation. The School considers that it needs to organize internal review on a regular basis.

Criterion 2-4: Disclosure of the self-check analysis

The School recognizes that it should further expand the scope of stakeholders, and listen to the opinions and suggestions of MBA students.

Comments:

The School has its systematic processes to analyze the self-check and evaluation on its MBA program. However, it should also highlight on the frequency of the meetings held and how frequently the program is being reviewed. The proposed establishment of an MBA special assessment /certification may help as part of the self-check processes. The School should also describe how its uses PDCA to evaluate its MBA program. Beside the Party, Government and industries, the School should include more diverse stakeholders such as alumni and its students.

Standard 3: Improvement of Education and Research Environment

There should be some quality assurance division at the School that is responsible for defining instruments (key performance indicators) and checking the progress of the action plans set up.
Besides explaining the processes for education improvement, the School should also mention about the research improvement. All action plans for improvement should be based on PDCA cycle.

Chapter 2 Mission Statement

Standard 4: Mission Statement

The School defines the purpose of its establishment as pursuance of excellent teaching in management and economics to provide high quality training for its students by improving their professional knowledge and skills.
The ideal model of the human resources to be nurtured defines a person who is prepared for the role of professional businessman, corporate leader, or academic researcher.
The ideal expertise, skills and competencies are stated as a high level of creativity, critical thinking, innovative spirit, international vision, sense of business ethics and life-long learning habit.
The School’s mission statement corresponds with its university vision in developing World Class University in Management. The report did not mention how the mission statement is being reviewed from the stakeholder perspective in detail.
The School has developed the mission statement for MBA program.

Standard 5: Mission Imperatives

The School’s mission statement indicates its action to meet the demand of the local and social development in China, particularly the Northeast region, as well as the advancement of China in economy, science and technology. Although the School’s mission statement is in line with the University’s mission statement, there is a need to have a systematic framework to regularly review the mission statement and to formulate the program’s mission statement. The program’s mission statement should support the student career development and advancement upon the completion of its MBA program. The School should also explain how the review is conducted and how the stakeholders’ views are taken into consideration.

Standard 6: Financial Strategies

The School has a solid financial foundation with the funds contributed by the government. The School plans to organize some events to raise more funds for its activities.
The financial status is reported and published every year. It is also reported that the financial budget for MBA has been increased for the past 5 years.

Chapter 3 Educational Programs

Standard 7: Learning Goals

SCR reports that there are following courses in the MBA program:
MBA Compulsory Courses
MBA Elective Courses
MBA Modular Courses
Comprehensive Courses.
While the program has its own learning goals, it is advisable to make sure that these learnig goals are aligned with the mission statement and the needs of the industry and market. It is also recommended that the School describes the process involved in setting the learning goals. The School may need to regularly seek inputs from various stakeholders such as industry experts and alumni for reviewing the learning goals. The School may also establish academic advisory system or provide a counsellor to assist students on academic matters. To enhance communication between the School and students, various channels could be explored.

Standard 8: Curriculum Policy

SCR reports that the curriculum is structured in five courses as follows.
MBA Compulsory Courses
MBA Elective Courses
MBA Modular Courses
Comprehensive Courses.
There should be some description about the type of students that each of these courses is designed for.
The School has a clear curriculum policy in cultivating the students’ sense of responsibility – personal, organizational and social. The School should regularly review its curriculum policy with inputs from various stakeholders including alumni.
It is not clear how the curriculum policy is manifesting ‘Chinese characteristics’, ethics, creative innovative spirit etc.

Standard 9: Management of Curriculum

For each of the five courses – MBA Compulsory Courses, MBA Elective Course, MBA Modular Courses and Comprehensive Courses – the following should be defined:

• the group of basic and foundational subject courses
• the group of specialized subject courses
• the group of elective subjects
• other special requirements for each course.

In view of the rapid development of the nation, the School is advised to develop a curriculum that reflects the timely and up-to-date content and syllabus. The School should explain how the MBA program structure is designed, such as how many credit hours per semester, credit hours in total, duration of study and number of semesters. The curriculum may be reviewed regularly. The School could elaborate more if there is any student survey in the end of the course as an input for the curriculum revision process. Various teaching and learning methods are being utilized in the program such as case teaching, field research and Q&A, that help to enhance the learning experience. At the moment, the School does not report that it offers any distance learning programs. There are channels in place to collect students’ suggestions on how to improve the curriculum.

Standard 10: Improvement of Educational Quality

In reference to Criterion 10-2, the number of class hours should be defined for one credit of each course. The requirements of each of the five courses are better defined by the number of credits required for each of the basic, elective and specialized groups.
The School also realizes that it needs to develop effective improvement measures.
The School may establish an open standard for grade and score calculation as reference for the program and students. The student management database ought to be enhanced for more accurate score calculation and information. Besides, the School needs to determine if the marks are moderated by course moderators and program chair to ensure it is objective and free from errors. The class size which is capped at 55 is rather large for MBA program. It raises concern whether the large class size may hinder the active participation of the students in the learning process. The School may consider to include the teachers’ contact and evaluation criteria for teaching effectiveness in the syllabus template.

Standard 11: Diploma Policy

There is no major issue with respect to this standard, as the current diploma policy is complete and in place.

Standard 12: Learning Outcomes’ Review

The School may need to look into mapping the learning outcomes with the learning objectives to assess its effectiveness. There should be regular communication with stakeholders in collecting feedback and inputs for learning outcomes’ review.
The School, notably, makes effort to ensure that the expertise and skills of the students correspond to the society’s expectations. The School conducts candid analyses on any gaps between the desired learning outcomes and actual ones.
In the ‘Issues to be improved’ as to Criterion 12-3, the School realizes the need of accommodating alumni opinions in the future program development process. It further feels the necessity for strengthening the relationship with government, enterprises and society as a base for program formation, especially from the perspectives of talent training for stakeholders.

Standard 13: Globalization of Educational Programs

The report considers the following improvements that can be made in the curriculum.

• Timely update the course content, reflecting the latest developments in the international economy and the latest economic policies of various countries.
• Introduce cross-cultural communication, ethnic culture, international culture and other humanities courses to improve the understanding of MBA students on multiculturalism.
• Strengthen English learning and improve students’ ability to communicate abroad, such as introducing bilingual teaching in Chinese and English, setting up English corners and launching English salons.

The School’s initiatives in bringing foreign experts to teach and give lectures in its MBA program are commendable. Efforts have been made to enable students to think and act globally by encouraging more use of English in the program and by integration of international elements in the course syllabus and teaching. The School can encoura

Chapter 4 Students

Standard 14: Student Profile

As to the numbers of students relative to the numbers of the applicants, the SCR reports as follows:

The figures in the Table indicate that the School is in the position to secure those students with target profiles.
The working years before enrollment are mostly 3-5 years. The age distribution of the new students is mainly 26-30 and 31-35 years old.
The number of students enrolled in the part-time MBA Program and the full-time International MBA is shown below.

Table 14-1-5 Number of Students enrolled (MBA and IMBA)

The Table above raises a question about how these two programs are to be integrated.
The student’s profile is comprehensive and diverse in terms of the age distribution, length of employment and industry characteristics. The student enrollment has been consistently at 170 to 190 each year. The enrollment almost doubled in 2017, which shows the popularity of the program. The international students’ enrollments also show diversity. The selection criteria and processes are in place to ensure the quality of the students. The School is planning to establish an examination supervision committee to ensure the entrance test can be conducted with fairness. The selection criteria and qualification requirements are being updated regularly.

Standard 15: Admission Policy

There are no major issues pertaining to the admission policy as the processes are complete and in place. The School should continue to review the admission policy from time to time to ensure it is relevant and up-to-date.
The School stipulates clearly its admission policy what is appropriate for accepting the target students. The application process for NEU’s MBA program is clear and well-administrated.

Standard 16: Student Selection

The SCR reports that, since most of the MBA students of Northeastern University come from government bodies and enterprises, the School can strengthen its inspection criteria on the ethics as a manager and leader, and inspect whether students have innovative entrepreneurship and the spirit of pioneering and enterprising in the actual management process.
The School has a stringent student selection processes with ensure openness, fairness and equity. In view of the high application and enrollment numbers in the recent years, the School is looking into controlling and screening the quality of the students to ensure the quality of the program is maintained.

Standard 17: Student Support

In reference to Criterion 17-4, the School has, as it is reported, accumulated rich and valuable experience in providing academic support and life assistance to international students.
In view of the Table 14-1-5: Number of Students enrolled (MBA and IMBA), some questions arise as follows:

• The full-time IMBA program and the part-time MBA Program differ very much from each other in the following aspects:
  • IMBA enrollments are about 15 – 26 as compared with about 350 MBA enrollments. The IMBA classes are full-time with classes during dayt while the MBA classes are in the evening. It is naturally understood that the IMBA classes are in English and the MBA classes are in Chinese. In other words, students in these two Programs appear to be studying in separate classes and environments. Does the School provide some opportunities or events where the international students get together with native students?
  • Are there any formal supports for the international students in their career planning?
  • Are there any arrangements for the international students to get internship opportunities or get a job in Chinese industries?

The report should provide more details about the support of the students’ lifestyle (criterion 17-3 and 17-4), about their non-academic interests such as sports, arts, business networking etc. The sharing of resources, facilities and activities should be explained.
There are several student support mechanisms reported in the SCR, such as financial support for conferences and activities, administrative support pertaining to academic guidance, career development, counselling. These mechanisms should be reviewed from time to time.
In view of the expanded enrollment of students in 2017 onwards, the staff strength of the MBA Course Project Management Center should be increased.

Standard 18: Student Incentive

There is evidence of academic excellence awards being given to outstanding students each year. There also seems to be some arrangement for organizing students to participate in various activities and competitions. Comprehensive orientation activity is held for new students during each enrollment period.

Standard 19: Student Diversity

The School and MBA program have a good mix of student diversity with the introduction of International MBA. The School also plans to conduct more student exchange programs with foreign universities.

Chapter 5 Faculty

Standard 20: Faculty Structure

The faculty structure reported in the SCR is summarized as follows.
There are 110 MBA faculty members for the total of 700 MBA and IMBA students. The total enrollments in 2017 was 348 as shown in Table 14-1-5 Number of Students enrolled (MBA and IMBA). The ratio of teachers to students is thus 1:7, which is favorable in comparison to the standard ratio of 1:10.
Out of the 110 faculty members, there are 30 professors, 55 associate professors and 25 Lecturers. There are 76 academically qualified members and 34 practically qualified members.
In the “improvement issues related to Criterion 20-4”, there is a statement: “At present, there are 53 full-time teachers and 10 part-time teachers undertaking the teaching tasks, 86 full-time teachers responsible for guidance task in the MBA program”.
The School realizes the need for further increasing the number of part-time teachers and reinforcing the MBA core faculty given the current lack of faculty with senior titles.
While the gender diversity is fine, the diversity in terms of nationality and cultural background appears to show room for improvement.

Standard 21: Faculty Qualifications

The School has highly-qualified full-time faculty members for each of the majors.　Many teachers have won prizes in teaching skills competition, and National multimedia courseware competition. A number of teachers have secured excellent teaching achievement award and title of teaching master in education of Northeastern University.
In terms of research, 1130 related research papers have been submitted to the core journals at home and abroad and presented at important international academic conferences. Among them, 678 retrieval papers are published, including SCI and EI, in international journals and academic conference proceedings.
Out of the 110 participating faculty members, 89 members hold Ph.D. degree.
The rules and criteria of the recruiting and related promotion are notably comprehensive in Northeastern University and the School.

Standard 22: Maintenance of Education and Research Environment

According to the School documents, a teacher can only teach one course in principle, and the course they teach should be consistent with the research direction of the teacher’s department.
Due to the large number of courses opened and the increased number of students, it became necessary to separate classes. Therefore, some teachers can now teach, reportedly, one required course and one or two elective courses under the premise of meeting the research scope.
Sufficient time is allocated for faculty members to conduct research and preparing their teaching materials. However, the report does not specify if there is any sabbatical leave policy that encourages staff to take longer period to conduct research. Rewards and incentives are in place to encourage faculty members to actively engage in research. Faculty members are actively involved in research, with more than 1100 papers being published from 2013 to 2017.

Standard 23: Responsibilities of Faculty Members

In reference to Criterion 23-1: Improving course contents and teaching methods, the development of the teachers’ courses is mainly based on their self-check/self-evaluation and students’ evaluation. The School itself does not have a corresponding monitoring and inspection mechanism. Therefore, the School is advised to regularly check the updating of the course content through supervision of those faculty members who lack teaching awareness and desire to improve their own teaching content.
In reference to Criterion 23-3: Teacher’s office hours and communication with students, since the entire School has been moved to the Hunnan campus, the faculty’s offices are also located in Hunnan campus. While MBA students need to work on weekday and attend classes on weekends, the time for face-to-face communication with teachers is limited.

Standard 24: Faculty Diversity

Among the 110 full-time teachers of the School, 62 of them have experience of overseas study or academic exchanges, accounting for 56.36%. Among the part-time teachers, 3 of them are foreigners and 5 of them have overseas study or academic exchange experience.
The School, reportedly, encourages and supports faculty members to conduct academic exchanges and study at home and abroad. In the basic requirements for applying for senior professional and technical positions, it is clearly stipulated that “the applicants who have experience of foreign (overseas) academic exchange for one year or more have priority over others under the same conditions”, and “the teachers who have business practice of one year or more have priority over others under the same conditions”.

Chapter 6 Educational Infrastructure

Standard 25: Educational Infrastructure

The SCR reports that, at present, all the teaching resources of the School are located in the Hunnan campus. MBA students are on-the-job studying type, and the use of various teaching resources is inadequate.
There are no major issues in this section as it has been adequately addressed. The new Hunnan Campus is well equipped with the most sophisticated and modern facilities for teaching and learning. The library is conducive for students to study and do their research with good range of reference and educational resources.
The details of the infrastructure at MBA education campus, however, are not well described. Although the facilities in the Hunnan Campus are well equipped and of highest standard, majority of the MBA courses are conducted in the city campus. How many of the MBA students really benefit from the excellent education infrastructure of Hunnan Campus?

Standard 26: Globalization of Educational Infrastructure

It stands to reason that the School (the MBA program), by itself, has only a limited ability to develop infrastructure for educational globalization within the University. The School is actively listing the education of international students as an important part of the international development of the University. The University would understand and strengthen infrastructural resources to facilitate the exchange and integration of campus multiculturalism.

III. “The School’s Quality Improvement Plan” Review

1. The School’s Quality Improvement System

The School is improving its MBA education by strengthening mechanisms in the following aspects:

• Faculty member recruitment and development
• Student source quality improvement
• Teaching and learning quality improvement
• Thesis quality improvement
• Organizational guarantees
• Educational resources’ improvement.

It is further noteworthy that external quality control mechanism is introduced to realize MBA professional degree quality improvement and control from external perspective, including carrying out third party evaluation, participating international accreditation, participating in education evaluation organized by Ministry of Education and Education Guidance Committee, participating in master thesis sampling inspection organized by Liaoning Education Department, and collecting 92 graduates’ feedback.

2. The School’s Improvement Issues

Following issues identified are worthy of note:

• Internal Quality Assurance
  • Need for setting up MBA Steering Committee.
  • Administrative organization of the School is unqualified and needs to be changed.
  • Due to the rapid increase in the number of MBA students and launching of the IMBA program, the existing administrative staff members in the MBA Education Center are far overloaded with work.
• The School needs to further develop Accounting, Business and other professional curriculum systems, and build a new curriculum for global business management.
• The School needs to invest more energy in short-term programs and the education of special student groups.
• The School should raise the goal of globalization to a higher level of strategy, and promote the globalization of the MBA education program.
• There is serious shortage of faculty with overseas experience in business administration major.
• There is an imbalance in age structure of faculty in the School of Business Administration.
• A group of well-known foreign scholars and entrepreneurs needs to be hired as part-time professors, and they will deeply involve themselves in all aspects of the MBA education program.
• There is a need to strengthen the “practical training” and “practicality” of teaching content for some teachers.

3. The School’s Improvement Initiatives

The School is actively seeking ways and initiatives to improve its quality assurance processes and resolving some of the issues highlighted in the Section 1 and throughout the report.
It is not clear, however, how do specific improvement issues discussed in Section 1 correspond with specific initiatives.

4. The School’s Action Plans for three years

The action plans are comprehensive. However, the action plans should, desirably, explain how the specific issues are to be addressed. Some of the action plans are just general statements lacking the specific targets or measurable outcomes.
As for the internal quality assurance, the plan for establishing NEU MBA Steering Committee is fine, but only as the first step. Forming an international certification department is also notable and attests to the School’s determination for internationalization of the MBA Program.
As for faculty, the serious shortage of teachers with overseas experience and insufficient number of part-time teachers are repeatedly mentioned as issues, but no concrete action plans are laid out for addressing these issues.
What concerns the reviewers is that no improvement issues are brought up concerning the International MBA program and hence no action plans are laid out.
IMBA curriculum content, faculty teaching at IMBA, and the relationship between the regular MBA and IMBA remain opaque throughout the SCR