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Headlines travel to Bangkok. A specially designed guest program includes the Welcome Reception and two full-day tours for accompanying spouses and family members. In addition, optional pre- and post-conference tours of Southeast Asia and Thailand have been designed to help attendees make the most of their Asian experience. One highlight will be a half-day tour of the three area business schools. The various tours will give visitors a chance to explore the fascinating past of the Thai Kingdom, underpinned by the people's adherence to Buddhism and reverence for the monarchy. The country has been a cultural crossroads, and many historical sites exist as testa- ment of the nation's evolution. All tours feature sightseeing, transporta- tion, accommodations, dining, and shopping. The Annual Meeting immediately Porter Prize to Recognize Japanese Businesses Distinguished Harvard professor Michael E. Porter is the namesake of a new award established by the Graduate School of International Corporate Strategy at Hitotsubashi University in Tokyo, Business Wire reports. The award will recognize Japanese companies that have achieved superior profitabil- ity in a specific industry through excellence in management and competitive strategy. The Porter Prize is being sponsored by the Daiwa Institute of Research of the Daiwa Securities Group, Tokyo. Porter has a long history of involvement with Japan and its economy and will be on the advisory board overseeing the prize. The university and the Daiwa Securities Group have formed a comprehensive university-industry alliance as part of a long-term plan to help revitalize the Japanese economy. The prize is one of its efforts. The Daiwa Institute of Research, which specializes in management and financial databases, will provide oper- ational and financial support to the prize. The Daiwa Securities Group plans to use the prize to "reinforce its intellectual assets and build a global human network by cooperating with leading authorities on strategy." In addition to Porter, the prize's advisory board will include Yoshinari Hara, president and CEO of Daiwa Securities Group; professor Ikujiro Nonaka of ICS; and Professor Iwao Nakatani at Tama University, also in Tokyo. The Graduate School of International Corporate Strategy was established in April 2000 as a precedes the Global Forum on Man- agement Education, which will be held from June 9 through 12, also at the Shangri-La Hotel in Bangkok. The Global Forum is held twice each dec ade and is dedicated to the advancement of the global practice of management edu- cation. In 2002, the Global Forum is hosted by Association of Deans of Southeast Asian Graduate Schools of Management (ADSGM) and co-hosted by AACSB International and other re- gional associations. The forum's strate- gic global partners include Andersen, Motorola, and Lufthansa, and Fuji Xerox has joined the forum as an offi- cial industry partner. Look for additional information about the AACSB Annual Meeting and the Global Forum in printed brochures that have been widely distributed. Detailed information is also available on the organizations' Web sites: www.aacsb.edu and www.globalforum2002.com. 10 BizEd NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2001 professional graduate school. For more details, see www.ics.hit-u.ac.jp. An application may be obtained from www.porterprize.org. Prize winners will have their case studies published in the Hitostubashi Business Review; case studies also will be registered at the Harvard Business School. In addition, organizers hope the Porter Prize will encourage the "theory and practice of competitive strategy to take root more widely among Japanese companies." Blue Ribbon Committee Studies Accreditation Changes What must a business school do to attain accreditation through AACSB Interna- tional—The Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business? Accred- itation standards have always been high, and will remain so, and a Blue Ribbon Committee established to re- view accreditation standards is consid- ering changes to the standards and to the process to maintain their currency and to improve their value to members. The committee will look at stan- dards "in light of the global environ- ment, changing higher education ini- tiatives, and the need to make accredi- tation a part of the normal strategic planning process," said AACSB outgo- ing chair Larry Penley in a report at AACSB's annual meeting held last spring. Penley is dean of the College of Business at Arizona State University, Tempe. The committee is focusing on three key areas. In the first area, the scope of accreditation, the committee is propos- ing that accreditation be awarded to an "administrative unit," which might be a school, department, college, or divi- sion. The second area being examined is that of accreditation standards. The committee is recommending standards that focus on educational expectations