Daniel Boden, Lisa D. McNair, and Maura Borrego
This study explores why interdisciplinary collaborations succeed or fail. We used Tannen’s (1993) discourse method of frame analysis to uncover individuals’ implicit assumptions toward interdisciplinary collaboration and mapped these expectations to one of three stages in Amey & Brown’s (2004) model of interdisciplinary team development. In analyzing meetings between an established team and four potential collaborators, we found that potential collaborators who interacted with the team at their current stage of development engaged in long-term collaborations, while others interacted at an earlier stage and were not asked to join the team. The findings can guide academic researchers in becoming better interdisciplinary collaborators.

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