Managing Research Collaborations

1
Managing Research Collaborations

• Sharon F. Matusik
• University of Colorado-Boulder
• OMT/ODC/MOC Doctoral Student Consortium
• Academy of Management Annual Meetings
• August 2006

2
What can research collaborations do?

• Provide complementary knowledge bases and skills
  which can lead to higher quality output
• Motivation and commitment to research voice
• Mechanism for direct feedback
• Positive interactions in what can be a solitary
  career

Adapted from Frost Taylor. 1996. Working
collaboratively in Rhythms of Academic Life
3
To persist, should yield

• Research achievement valued by involved parties
• Ideally see outcome as better than what could be
  individually achieved
• Enjoyable interpersonal interactions

Adapted from Frost Taylor. 1996. Working
collaboratively in Rhythms of Academic Life
4
How tos

• Selecting collaborators
• Managing collaborations
• Approaching a senior scholar to collaborate with
  you

5
Selecting collaborators

• Balance working with your chair and other senior
  faculty
• Positives
• Learning
• Quality reviewers
• Negatives
• Need to establish your own academic identity
• Attribution of quality may go to well-known
  scholar rather than you

• Complementary skills are important, but so are
• Complementary priorities, time lines
• Institutions have different value on research
• Career stage
• Complementary work styles and world views
• Methodological, theoretical orientations
• Nature of interdependence (Sequential or pooled
  vs. reciprocal)

6
Selecting collaborators (cont.)

• Is this someone who you like and who is
  stimulating to work with?
• One of the best parts of this career is that you
  can choose who to work with
• Process takes so long, and reward at end may not
  be perceived as enough so make sure the process
  is fulfilling
• Someone to share the success with
• Beer test

• Develop unique and valuable skills, resources so
  others will approach you
• Its easy to add a coauthor, but very difficult
  to remove one!

7
Managing the collaboration

• Whos driving?
• Discussions on order of authorship?
• Who will write the first draft?
• On-going vs. one time relationship

• Its kind of like a marriageyou have to live
  with them (Barry Staw)
• Jealousies, work habits, vulnerabilities, walk in
  other persons shoes, validate other
• Someone to vent to
• Have to be able to disagree with each other
• Compromise and conflict are part of the process

8
Managing the collaboration (cont.)

• Dealing with a bad situation
• Get out early
• Consider bringing in someone else to dilute the
  negative, (with full disclosure)
• Try to avoid low potential situations in the
  first place

• Think about where to go next
• Consider outlining future project (s) before the
  current one ends

9
Approaching a senior scholar

• Develop it as a win-win proposition
• Idea is reasonably far along and well-developed
• There is a valuable resource you bring to the
  table
• Unique data source, methodological skills, etc
• There is a clearly defined role for the senior
  scholar that fits with how s/he can add value

• Develop a personal connection with that person

10
Resources

• Frost, P and Taylor, S. 1996. Rhythms of
  Academic Life. Sage Thousand Oaks CA.
• Frost and Taylor. Working collaboratively
• Hinings and Greenwood. Working together
• Dutton, Bartunek Gersick. Growing a personal,
  professional collaboration
• Hunt, Ropo Eriksson. Three voices reflecting
  scholarly career journeys with international
  collaboration
• Dutton, J. and Dukerich J. 2006. The relational
  foundation of research An underappreciated
  dimension of interesting research. AMJ. 49
  21-26.
• Gersick, C., Bartunek, J. and Dutton, J. 2000.
  Learning from academia The importance of
  relationships in professional life. AMJ. 43
  1026-1044.

11
putting these ideas into practice

• Enjoy the break
• Connections you make here may yield future
  research relationships