Reimagining Interdisciplinarity: Sensitization, Reflexivity, and Mobilization Across Landscapes of Practice

Abstract Interdisciplinary research (IDR) is widely promoted as essential for addressing complex societal challenges, yet its enactment remains fraught. We argue that dominant typological and structural approaches miscast IDR and underplay the practical work through which it unfolds. Drawing on practice theory, we reconceptualize IDR as bundles of practices enacted across landscapes of practice. We theorize three guiding constructs: sensitization, reflexivity, and mobilization that support the coordination of IDR without collapsing its ontological multiplicity through misplaced attempts at epistemological integration. A practice lens clarifies why structural and typological interventions supply conditions that support IDR but do not guarantee outcomes; foregrounds the fragility, temporality, and politics of doing IDR; and reframes evaluation around practices rather than proxy measures such as bibliometrics. We outline implications for organizing and leading IDR and a research agenda linking IDR to wider debates in management and organization studies. Our contribution shifts attention from what IDR is to how it is enacted, sustained, and sometimes unravelled in practice.