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be willing to pay the price. Interdis- ciplinary teaching and learning fall clearly in the domain of educational scholarship. As long as the faculty evaluation process fails to reward educational work as a scholarly con- tribution, business school faculty will not rise above any of the excuses noted here. What is their incentive? I suppose we shouldn't condemn linkages across concentrations—and usually they're not even allowed to study the subjects simultaneously in one classroom! Excuse No. 2: We lack the necessary teaching resources. Any discussion on this topic ulti- mately gets to the nitty-gritty of undergraduate teaching materials. Few textbooks focus even marginally on cross-functional issues, and cases that truly examine such issues are rarely available. Schools that want to emphasize cross-functional education would need to ask their professors to take on an increased workload, but it often seems that most profes- sors would rather complain that the necessary materials are not available than do the work of creating them. This leads me directly to the No. 1 reason business schools do not offer interdisciplinary curricula. Excuse No. 1: There is no reward for cross-functional teaching efforts. This excuse strikes at the heart of many prominent business schools because it forces administrators to consider what the university's pri- orities are in terms of teaching and learning. Creating and implement- ing a truly cross-functional program requires tremendous time and energy, and administration has to business schools too harshly, since many corporations also fail at innova- tion. In a 2006 BusinessWeek article by Michael Arndt, Whirlpool CEO Jeff M. Fettig said, "We knew from a strategic view what we needed to do, but from a practical point of view we didn't know how to do it at all." However, Whirlpool figured out how to innovate, and now companies such as Hewlett-Packard, Nokia, and Procter & Gamble benchmark their innovations against Whirlpool. Shouldn't more business schools con- quer the "how" of cross-functional teaching so they can nurture gradu- ates who understand innovation? As evidenced by the lack of it, cross-functional teaching is not easy to integrate into the curricula of busi- ness schools. However, if business educators are to foster innovation, we have to denounce the excuses and take action. Many players could have a role in fixing the situation: n Accrediting agencies could bring the need for cross-functional- ity to the forefront in their assess- ment of programs. If nothing else, this would force business schools to examine their curricula and determine how many opportuni- ties they offer for interdisciplinary courses. It would also cause schools to consider where such courses could fit into their programs. n Publishers of the business school rankings could measure how well schools integrate programs across dis- ciplines. If business schools are ranked on how well they integrate cross- functional education, deans will do more than pay lip service to the idea. n Academic associations could add cross-functional tracks to confer- ence programs and facilitate interdis- ciplinary teaching groups. n Journals could designate one of their editors as the "cross-functional associate editor," the way they des- ignate associate editors in functional disciplines. n Finally, business schools them- selves could recognize and reward interdisciplinary teaching. Schools award grants and recognition to fac- ulty who use technology creatively in the classroom. Why is demon- strating technological prowess more important than teaching students to understand the cross-functional nature of business? If business schools do not learn how to educate across disciplines, how can we turn out graduates who understand that innovation is criti- cal to success? A recent reviewer of a teaching proposal called cross-func- tional teaching a "30-year-old pipe dream." One of my admired col- leagues phrased it even more bleakly, saying that the business academic discipline has deconstructed itself in the finest tradition of post-modern- ism, so that now faculty members are less cross-functional than ever. I hope both of them are wrong. And I believe that—if we all work together to overcome our excuses—we can make the cross-functional classroom a vital part of business education. n z Victoria L. Crittenden is chairperson of the MBA Core Faculty for Graduate Management Programs at Boston College's Carroll School of Management in Massachusetts. BizEd MARCH/APRIL 2009 63