Collaborative research between university-based and non university-based researchers

One relationship that has been under-examined in the literature has been that among researchers based in different institutions³. Collaboration among researchers based in the university is mostly analysed in the literature as team research (Crow, Levine and Nager, 1992; Liggett, Glesne, Johnston, Brody Hasazi and Schattman, 1994; Olesen, Droes, Hatton, Chico and Schatzman, L., 1994; Porter, 1994; Wasser and Bresler, 1996; Woods, Boyle, Jeffrey and Troman, 2000). This body of literature explores the challenges that surface when researchers need to negotiate ideas and activities with colleagues.

When university-based researchers work with researchers based in a different institution, especially a non-academic institution, the challenges that emerge are different than those that arise in collaborative relationships among peers in one type of institution such as universities. Values, demands and expectations are quite different in a university setting than in other organizations (Tom and Sork, 1994). These differences add a specific layer to the collaborative relationships between researchers located in different institutions. Researchers need to make shared project related decisions that can be suitable for organizations with different reward systems.

Barbara Cottrell, Stella Lord, Lise Martin and Susan Prentice (1996) argue that institutional and contextual differences have the most significant effect on collaborative relationships.

These differences between how community groups operate and how universities operate are not neutral: they are shaped by power relations and power differences which must be named, recognized and dealt with before a successful partnership relationship can be established. (p. 102)

The authors point out that many researchers do not have experience building partnerships and negotiating different reward systems. This lack of experience added to the institutional and contextual factors can result in failed experiences.

³ There is a large body of literature that focuses on the partnerships between universities and the for profit sector (see Currie and Newson, 1998; Newson, 1998, Polster, 1998). Although some of the issues that surface in those relationships are similar to the ones with the not for profit sector, the contextual factors are so different that I found that literature did not really contribute to the arguments I make in this dissertation.