DIRECTOR’S DESPATCH
PAVING THE WAY FOR AN INTERDISCIPLINARY PATH AMBA & BGA membership director Victor Hedenberg explains why interdisciplinary approaches could prove vital to a leader’s future success and makes the case for overhauling the traditional university model to facilitate collaboration between faculties and disciplines
T he months of July and August come with a relative lull in academic activities across many parts of the world, but I’ve still had the opportunity to engage with a great number of global business school leaders and discuss their current challenges in a complex world. At the recent Times Higher Education Global Sustainable Development Congress in Istanbul, it became particularly apparent to me that the traditional university model is in need of a major operational shakeup. Let me explain: today’s multifaceted challenges enough on its own. Instead, you need some additional knowledge in a field relevant to your interests, whether that’s in engineering, medical sciences or hospitality, for example. The good news is that most universities have multiple faculties that house expertise in these areas. The bad news is that universities tend to be terrible at building interdisciplinary programmes that truly leverage the strengths of disparate faculties at one time. Through my conversations with demand interdisciplinary leaders, meaning that business education, in its traditional form, is no longer
One needs only to look at how some of the world’s most innovative and impactful companies operate: staff with relevant expertise are pulled into objective- focused products or services, with a project head co-ordinating the entire process. When that product or service has launched, staff are re-arranged into new projects based on needs. One does not need to venture far to see how such a model could work within a university or business school setting. Take, for example, the possibility of launching a faculty of interdisciplinarity with a focus on addressing societal challenges. Such a faculty could pull in resources from other faculties based on its needs at a given time, or for a specific project. It might, for example, decide to launch a research piece on how to build and promote the circular economy, or an executive education programme tailored to software engineers. Faculty members who join these activities could also be given incentives and rewards for their active participation. The flexibility and ability to direct resources to where it’s needed most is surely a must in today’s fast-paced and uncertain world, but only time will tell which universities will lead the way for moulding interdisciplinary models that allow their graduates to thrive.
various stakeholders, I’ve discovered that the reason for this relates to the way universities are currently set up. Faculties are often siloed, with no tangible incentives for cross‑collaboration. In addition, there can be a significant amount of ego involved when it comes to interactions with different faculties and a degree of unwillingness to collaborate on projects that could threaten the status quo. This was a common thread in stories shared with me by three reputable institutions in the space of a single month. The industry is at a crossroads. Now that higher education is no longer offered exclusively by universities and management institutions, the incumbent business model needs a serious rethink. “The flexibility and ability to direct resources to where it’s needed most is surely a must in today’s fast-paced and uncertain world”
38 Business Impact • ISSUE 4 • 2025
Made with FlippingBook - Share PDF online