ACSB Post-Doctoral Bridge Program: A Non-Traditional Bridge to Become Scholarly Academic

Abstract

A steady decrease in accounting PhD graduates has led to a shortage of accounting faculty classified as ‘Scholarly Academic’ (SA) according to AACSB standards for accreditation. To increase the supply of qualified accounting faculty, programs like the University of Florida’s Post-Doctoral Bridge Program (PDBP) have evolved to enable faculty to become qualified as Scholarly Academic (SA) per AACSB standards. From 2008 to 2020, the PDBP produced 43 SA qualified graduates from the accounting concentration track of the program. This increase in SA accounting faculty resulted in an average of 3.3 graduates per year, with two-thirds of graduates currently employed in AACSB accredited programs. Results suggest that non-traditional programs like the PDBP are a viable option to help alleviate the shortage of SA accounting faculty faced by academia.