# Abstract

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This chapter examines outcome-based accreditation frameworks adopted by 14 higher education institutions across 3 regions in Southeast Asia between 2015 and 2022. Drawing on 312 institutional self-study reports, 47 site-visit summaries, and 6 cross-institution benchmarking exercises, the study maps how standards translation varies by national regulatory context. Institutions operating under Decree 2019-88 demonstrated mean compliance rates of 78.4 percent across 9 quality domains, compared with 61.2 percent among peers governed by earlier frameworks predating 2012. The 7 year transition window observed in Vietnam corresponds with a 22 percentage-point improvement in external review scores, whereas the 4 year window recorded in Malaysia showed more modest gains of 11 points. These divergences suggest that accreditation timelines interact with institutional capacity in ways that aggregate cross-national comparisons obscure. A multilevel model fitted to 1,840 department-level observations confirms that 3 moderating variables — regulatory coherence, peer-learning network density, and staff development investment — jointly account for 38 percent of outcome variance. Institutions that maintained continuous self-study cycles across all 5 review rounds outperformed those that engaged only in terminal reviews by 17 percentage points on the composite quality index. Average programme-level compliance gains plateaued after round 3 in 8 of 14 institutions, indicating diminishing returns beyond the first 3 iterative cycles. This analysis tentatively suggests that sustained regulatory engagement, rather than compliance volume, drives measurable quality gains. Policymakers designing next-generation accreditation systems should consider embedding 2 mandatory iterative review cycles before summative evaluation, and may wish to pilot 1 regional benchmarking hub per sub-region to reduce isolated implementation drift.
