Professional associations and business organizations today consider interdisciplinary perspective and cross-disciplinary knowledge as essential requirements for business graduates entering the workforce. Lack of cross-functional integration and integrated learning perspectives not embedded in the business curriculum are main reasons sited for this inadequacy of business graduates. A large number of business schools, generally entrenched in the 20th century functional specialization both in their organizational structure as well as in their curriculum design, are criticized for not living up to the challenges of 21st century business organizations. Recognizing this need, an attempt is made in a large Australian university to develop integrated learning in their undergraduate business curriculum. As business students’ move from one unit to another across various disciplines in the business school, cross-functional integration and integrated learning perspectives are incorporated in the curriculum. Focusing on two core units offered by the disciplines of Accounting and Business Information Systems, this study in the first phase, proposed to analyse students’ understanding of the concept, need and significance of integrated learning, within their broad career objectives and professional interests. After analyzing various approaches such as integrated case study, capstone projects, e-portfolios, and enterprise wide information systems adopted by various schools, this university has adopted ‘scaffolding approach’ and ‘e-portfolios’ to deliver this integrated learning and intend to measure the effectiveness. This paper explains the rationale and theoretical framework for this approach and discusses the research design.

Key words: Integrated learning, Business curriculum, e-Portfolios, Scaffolding approach