Edu-leaders

Ability to think and work across disciplinary boundaries is becoming more important than ever. A white paper by the Teagle Foundation, US, argues, “A successful interdisciplinary programme—in addition to focusing on critical thinking, problem solving and analytical skills expected of most liberal arts programmes— must develop student capacities to integrate or synthesise disciplinary knowledge and modes of thinking.”

Interdisciplinary education had been highly valued by liberal arts institutions, especially at undergraduate levels, however, business schools have been slow to move beyond their silo-based learning approach. Warren Bennie and James O’Toole in their Harvard Business Review article—How Business Schools Lost Their Way—critiqued the current model of B-schools and argued: “The entire MBA curriculum must be infused with multi-disciplinary, practical and ethical questions and analyses reflecting the complex challenges business leaders face.”

Jeffrey Pfeffer and Christina Fong in their article—The End of Business Schools? Less Success Than Meets the Eye—identified one of the ways B-schools can address the issue of relevance is by offering programmes, which do not restrict themselves to a “conventional set of functional courses, but instead recognise the interdisciplinary, inter-related world of modern business. This design element leaves them more veridical with the problems people face in actual management situations, where issues do not arrive to be solved segmented by discipline.”

Interdisciplinarity is defined by Salter and Hearn as “any challenge to the limitations or premises of the prevailing organisation of knowledge or its representation in an institutionally recognised form.”

Thus, interdisciplinary approach builds on the foundations of disciplinary knowledge to create new knowledge and solve complex problems. This approach aims at developing competencies like adaptability, critical thinking and innovation. Charlotte Woods identified three major arguments in favor of interdisciplinary learning and curriculum—educational benefits of critically examining one’s own discipline from another disciplinary perspective, the nature of the work is calling for more cross-functional and collaborative approach, and the global challenges require a new comprehensive problem-solving approach.

Interdisciplinary Programmes
In the US, a new interdisciplinary degree called Professional Science Masters (PSM) has been gaining ground. The objective of PSM is to professionalise sciences, social sciences, and humanities degrees to produce graduates with both disciplinary expertise and business skills. Within a decade of its launch, more than 100 universities are offering PSM degree. Dean David King of the State University of New York (Oswego) said, “It’s interdisciplinary. It’s a hybrid, which I think is more agile. It’s responsive to rapidly changing needs in terms of the job market”, in a recent New York Times article.

Likewise, IBM had been promoting an interdisciplinary field of Service Science, Management and Engineering (SSME) based on the premise that the global economy is increasingly becoming services and knowledge-driven, which requires a unique set of interdisciplinary competencies to innovate in the sector. SSME leverages the strengths of existing disciplines of engineering and management to develop T-shaped professionals who possess deep disciplinary expertise coupled with wide interactional expertise to understand and communicate across a wide range of disciplines and business functions.

More recently, some of the best B-schools have been working to integrate interdisciplinary curriculum and research in their offerings. For example, Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business launched an interdisciplinary programme in healthcare; Stanford’s Law and Business Schools, announced creation of an interdisciplinary centre focusing on clean energy technology; Columbia Business School announced grant of $30,000 to $40,000 a year to faculty collaborating on interdisciplinary research and teaching; and Brown University partnered with Spain’s Instituto de Empre¬sa (IE) to launch an Executive MBA (EMBA) programme with interdisciplinary liberal arts.

Opportunities for Indian B-schools
In India, interdisciplinary orientation is very weak, both at undergraduate and postgraduate levels. Early specialisation restricts students’ ability to holistically conceptualise and solve problems, and makes them inflexible to changes and demands for new skills. The case of unemployment and underemployment among B-schools graduates clearly reflects inadequate skills among fresh graduates in the areas of communication, teamwork and big-picture problem solving approach.

Indian B-schools have to broaden their own mindset by accepting that they are not in the business of offering MBA degrees. Instead they are in the business of developing talent, which innovates, improves and provides solutions to business and societal problems. Thus, one approach to make B-schools relevant is to consider some of the biggest challenges faced by the Indian society and collaborate to offer programmes, which go beyond disciplinary and geographical boundaries.

Consider the challenges of higher education. Why can’t IIM Bangalore reach out to NIEPA, Delhi, to offer a course in Education Administration? Likewise, in the case of energy management, why should MDI (Gurgaon) not reach out to TISS (Mumbai) to offer a course in Human Services?

Interdisciplinary approach can also help institutions in creating a unique position, and open up doors for international collaborations. Jindal Global Business School (JGBS) is one such institution, which calls itself as “India’s first multi-disciplinary global business school”. JGBS has collaborated with Indiana University’s Kelly Business School for a new master’s in business and law degree.

Interdisciplinary education and research builds on the foundations of disciplines and further enriches the disciplines and the practice. Without an orientation of learning from the strengths of different disciplines, many of the complex societal and business problems will remain unresolved or will be ineffectively resolved. B-schools have a responsibility to support development of effective talent pool and interdisciplinary approach offers just the right opportunity for delivering results.