Teamwork in action: Collaborating across borders

Academicians are often found working in silos and focused on producing scholarship to attain tenure. Collaboration between faculty members has the potential to increase their productivity and help achieve tenure and promotion quicker. In this paper, the authors discuss both challenges and opportunities that faculty face when they collaborate. The paper describes a case study of a team of faculty including their efforts in creating an effective team and their guidelines to successfully work collaboratively over a 5-year period while addressing challenges that arose. The team comprises of three members from different engineering fields and different cultural backgrounds and working at different universities in two countries. This study discusses how the team was handled differences in cultural background and discipline as well as how they addressed conflicts and limitations introduced by geographical borders. In addition, this paper discusses best practices for effective collaboration, guidelines developed for this collaboration and similarities and differences among the team members that contributed to a stronger and more productive team. Furthermore, this study sheds light on important factors that led to more effective collaboration that is transferable to other teams.