Working in multi-disciplinary and methodologically diverse teams: practical lessons from collaborating with defence-based organisations

Academics in scholarly institutions work collaboratively with external stakeholders to solve real-world problems of mutual interest. Financial resources for academic research are increasingly competitive, with many academics turning to industry to secure funding. A traditional yet growing collaboration area is between academics and defence-based organisations which comprise a significant portion of the economy and are vital to academic research opportunities whereby mutual success is the goal. This chapter draws on the literature and the authors’ experiences working within multidisciplinary and methodologically diverse teams that integrate mixed methods.,. The authors bring 60 years of combined experience working within multidisciplinary teams and over 25 years working with defence-based organisations. This chapter exemplifies key characteristics of successful multidisciplinary teams and methodological diversity for collaboration to encourage business and management academics to consider the benefits of collaborating with industry partners. We bring attention to the importance of the four pillars of productive collaborations: trust, communication, integration of methodological diversity, and effective project management.

Key Words
Collaboration, Defence, Methodological Diversity, Multidisciplinary Teams, Research, Trust