PHBS Earns AMBA Accreditation

17 May 2019

Peking University HSBC Business School (PHBS) has officially received accreditation from AMBA (The Association of MBAs) in May and is among only 2% of business schools from over 70 countries to hold AMBA accreditation. Last year, PHBS was accredited by AACSB, which has the broadest scope and grants university-wide accreditation.

“Being granted AMBA accreditation is an international recognition to our endeavour of business education and our MBA and EMBA programs in particular,” said PHBS Founding Dean Wen Hai. “We will continue to build up a top international business school and take this accreditation as the beginning of an ongoing, continuous improvement process for our executive training programs.”

 Andrew Main Wilson, Chief Executive of AMBA & the Business Graduates Association (BGA), added, “We look forward to working closely with colleagues at PHBS – and its MBA students and graduates – to ensure that outstanding post-graduate management education continues to be the top priority for employers, governments, and ambitious executives who are destined to become the global business leaders of the future.”

Founded in 1967, AMBA describes itself as “the impartial authority on postgraduate management education” and accredits only the MBA portfolio within a business school. Among its requirements is that MBA applicants must have at least three years of full-time work experience. In mid-March, the AMBA peer review team visited PHBS for an on-site evaluation, and PHBS leadership team along with faculty, staff, students, and alumni representatives participated in the peer review interviews. They were also joined by key employers from the industry. 

The AMBA team was impressed by the school’s rapid development and extensive achievements. Among several quality indicators, the team recognized the school’s high-quality facilities and faculty, a strong commitment to internationalization, the rigorous assessment in courses and dissertations, strict admission for MBA and EMBA, and entrepreneurial spirit and culture. Noting the school’s internationalization actions, the AMBA team cited faculty recruitment and the establishment of the UK campus. Most of the school’s full-time faculty earned their PhD from prestigious overseas universities. Nearly half of the faculty members are international, and many have professional experience. Faculties have access to Harvard Business School (HBS) cases and utilize their knowledge to conduct more consultant work for the industry. Consulting experiences provide a variety of cases for classroom teaching.

Offering challenging coursework in MBA and EMBA programs that underpins innovation, business expertise, and ethical practices, PHBS requires five years’ managerial experience for the EMBA program. Therefore, PHBS has strong connections with the corporate world and provides students with practical cases that relate management theories to students’ work experience. According to the feedback from the peer review team, “This is reflected in the learning experience in the different courses: students were very positive about the current business awareness of faculty members.” To provide in-depth Chinese educational experiences with a global perspective, PHBS admits international students into its full-time English MBA program. In addition, the school has fostered strategic partnerships with the world’s reputable universities and business schools, including Zicklin School of Business (ZSB) at Baruch College, the City University of New York. 

The two schools signed an agreement in 2016 to offer the MBA-MSF (Master of Business Administration–Master of Science in Finance) dual degree program. Students admitted into the program complete their MBA courses at PHBS in their first year and then study for the MSF degree at ZSB in their second year.

 “With its accreditation, PHBS joins a group of the world’s leading business schools as AMBA continues to grow across Asia and Oceania, building a network of the highest-quality business schools across the region,” said Wilson. 

 Now, as an AMBA-accredited school, students and alumni can also have access to a range of networking opportunities across all continents with corporate partners, as well as access to a database for career advice and knowledge and an MBA jobs portal.

(Report by Annie Jin. Edited by Priscilla Young & Zoë Toone)