Meeting new challenges in higher education: Two educational activities and an interdisciplinary competency framework

This article explores how educational institutions are faced with changes in the modern global business environment, and how this leads to a need for changes in curricula for business schools and information systems schools. Most of academia still uses a strict disciplinary model of education resulting in a high degree of specialization within each discipline while the modern business environments require knowledge workers who can address problems that cut across disciplines on an increasingly global scale. Research papers and governmental reports call for more emphasis on particularly three interdisciplinary topics; 1) competencies in globalization issues, 2) communication/working in team, and 3) information literacy. The academic disciplines of business education and information systems education in particular have received much attention in this respect with several calls for change. How to bring about such a change is, however, still an open question. Currently many universities are looking into their educational offerings in order to adapt to the new situation. This paper proposes to address this issue in two ways; by suggesting two new educational activities and by proposing a new educational interdisciplinary competency framework to guide curriculum development when including interdisciplinary topics. Introduction and literature review There has been a call for university programs that are more applied, more professionally oriented and of more international character (Harvard 2008; e-Skills Demand 2009). In Harvard (2008) the author reports on a comprehensive joint work by ivory league business colleges in USA examining critics claiming MBA programs put too much emphasis on theory and in-depth knowledge in specific disciplines. They conclude that there is a need for curriculums to be strengthened in the three areas; globalization, the integrated nature of business processes, and experiential learning. The e-Skills Demand Developments and Challenges (2009) by the European Union explore the demand for different types of ICT-related qualifications (“e-skills”) in companies. It is a continuation of the work of the e-Business W@tch conducted since 2002 for European enterprises. Their study is based on case studies in 5 companies and statistical data from 1027 enterprise surveys. In addition to these primary sources they used secondary sources from other EU studies, market studies and publications like white papers and position papers and 2 articles in the ICT press. Their 2009 studies reveal that at the aggregate level the demand for personnel is in balance with supply in terms of quantity of candidates. But they found a mismatch between what competencies the companies needed and what curricula of ICT studies offer. In particular, they found a demand for communication skills, project management skills, a thorough understanding of business processes, and practical skills in business software systems (see Key findings p.5). The Joint ACM/AIS Undergraduate Curriculum Revision Task Force (ACM/AIS 2008) has given recommendations for new courses including a Business Process Management course about which they said: “The demonstration of leading ERP systems such as SAP and their use in business process management is highly recommended.” A convergence of these demands is evident. It is a call for more emphasis on particularly three interdisciplinary topics; 1) globalization, 2) collaboration in teams, and 3) information literacy. How to incorporate these interdisciplinary issues in standard curriculums that have a strong disciplinary focus is an open question. Many universities are looking into their curriculums in order to adapt to the demand. There is a large body of literature related to curriculum development and disciplines by the academia themselves of which some wide ranging examples are Willi Petersen and Wehmeyer (2009), Targowski and Tarn (2007, Winterton (2005) and Kolb (1981). The universities, being the supply side, have a long tradition of developing strong disciplines. Academic departments are organized according to subjects that do not match well with the increasing demand for interdisciplinary competencies. Thus, in this paper we base our suggestions mostly on the demand side, i.e. the needs by industries, businesses, organizations and the society at large for competencies as emphasized by e-Skills Demand (2009) and Harvard (2008). In doing so we seek a general, holistic model that captures the major areas of our organized society. The structuring of organizations is used as a foundation that we relate technology issues and new educational activities to. We recognize that the current state of university curriculums are by large well developed and in good shape to address the needs of the society. They address the need for specialization and in-depth knowledge on complex issues in each field particularly well. Our aim is to add a small, but crucial element; the integration of competencies from several fields that the students have already learned in business, economics and information systems classes. The mechanisms by which organizations coordinate their activities are closely related to the competencies of the work force. There is a huge variance in competencies required for the