Using Innovations in Student Teaming to Leverage Crossfunctional and Marketing Learning: Evidence from a Fully Integrated Undergraduate Core

Implementing a cross functional curriculum and team learning are still major challenges for many business schools. This article focuses on sharing the lessons from the Boston University School of Management curriculum's extensive use of integration mechanisms in its undergraduate junior-level core during the past 12 years. Our required core courses consist of traditional marketing, operations, information systems, and finance courses integrated into a unique one-semester sequence via a team-based new product venture, where students develop a comprehensive business plan for a new product idea. We discuss tools we have developed and deployed in team learning to support our cross functional initiatives. Finally, we present some results from our team learning data and its impact on students’ functional marketing knowledge.