Specialist or generalist: Views from academia and industry

Cross-functional integration is a significant and continuing trend in the modern corporation. While MBA curricula have tended to accommodate, successfully, the trend toward cross-functional integration, concern has been expressed as to whether undergraduate business programs have been as adept at providing students with skills that will help them succeed in a progressive business environment. More importantly, however, the question arises as to whether undergraduate programs should educate students as generalists or whether the role of the undergraduate curriculum is that of building expertise in a particular functional area. The results offered by the current research suggest that business leaders, faculty members, and undergraduate business students are not willing to sacrifice functional expertise in favor of managerial generalist.