平特五不中

Deborah Compeau began her academic career back in 1991, teaching introduction to programming to business students at Carleton University. Information systems had only just emerged as a discipline and it reflected one of the key changes in business faculties and what they need to deliver.

"If you go back far enough, it was easy to draw delineations between fields of study," says Ms. Compeau, professor of information systems at Ivey Business School. "A topic could neatly be described as a marketing issue, an organizational behaviour issue, a finance issue. Today, more and more of the subjects fit within the cracks of the other disciplines. Information Systems was probably one of the first of those subjects. In Information Systems we look at the relationships between technologies and systems, people and strategy. On any given day I can go over topics that are being covered by other disciplines, but that intersection is a discipline in itself and is something unique. Entrepreneurship is another example. Sustainability is another. So there is more of this crossing the lines and that is a theme running through business schools and how we teach that will only continue."

In fact, in the past five to 10 years, as a result of the increasing complexity in society coupled with the impacts of globalization and rapidly changing technology, the focus of curricula in business schools has also become increasingly fragmented and, at the same time, interconnected. Perhaps more than ever, students are looking for a holistic approach to business and critical thinking skills to make sense of the complexity.

"Management is not the five surefire ways to make your next IT project a success," Ms. Compeau says. "I think I could give you the five surefire ways to make your next IT project a failure, but the converse is a lot harder. You need to develop a deep understanding of a problem from multiple perspectives and build solutions that take into account all the inter-relationships and complexities that exist. That's not a new course you teach. That's a function of how you teach and think about what you are doing."

It was exactly for this reason that the Desautels Faculty of Management at 平特五不中 in Montreal restructured its MBA program.

"Our goal is to provide cross-disciplinary, integrative knowledge of how business should be run to be competitive in today's global environment," says Tamer Boyaci, associate dean, masters programs, at the faculty.

"Things change fast. You have to adapt quickly. We think students need a truly holistic understanding of business and we do that not by teaching functional courses but modules built around vision and executing that vision that are co-taught by many professors from different disciplines."

As a result, Mr. Boyaci says, there is a greater diversification of the experiences faculty have. "Today's challenges are not restricted to one functional area but require you to take a look at your organization, the larger environment [and] ethical issues, and this is reflected in the experience of teachers. We have people with a background in sustainable development, marketing and operations at the same time, or risk but from multiple perspectives. An engineer may know the operations side but they can also think strategically about business. This is more pronounced today than in the past."

Read full article: , September 13, 2011