Purpose

Teamwork has long featured in social science research. Further, with research increasingly “cross-national,” communication becomes more complex, for instance, involving different cultures, languages and modes of communication. Yet, studies examining team communicative processes that can facilitate or constrain collaboration are rare. As a cross-national European team representing varied disciplines, experiences, languages and ethnicities, we undertook to examine our communication processes with the aim to promote better qualitative research practices.

Design/methodology/approach

Viewing reflection as a tool for enhancing workplace practices, we undertook a structured reflection. We developed an empirically derived framework about team communication, then used it to analyse our interaction practices and their relative effectiveness.

Findings

The results highlighted two under-examined influences, the use of different modes of communication for different purposes and the need for face-to-face communication to address a particularly challenging aspect of research, negotiating a shared coding scheme to analyse diverse cultural and linguistic qualitative data.

Practical implications

The study offers a procedure and concepts that others could use to examine their team communication.

Originality/value

The communicative processes that can constrain and facilitate effective cross-national research team collaboration are rarely examined. The results emphasise the need for careful negotiations around language, epistemologies, cultures and goals from the moment collaboration begins in formulating a project, through applying for grant funds, to when the last paper is published – timely in a context in which such work is increasingly expected.

中文翻译：

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检验跨国研究团队合作：揭示回报和挑战

目的

团队合作长期以来一直是社会科学研究的特色。此外，随着研究越来越“跨国”，交流变得更加复杂，例如，涉及不同的文化、语言和交流方式。然而，很少有研究可以促进或限制协作的团队交流过程。作为代表不同学科、经验、语言和种族的跨国欧洲团队，我们承诺检查我们的沟通过程，旨在促进更好的定性研究实践。

设计/方法/方法

将反思视为增强工作场所实践的工具，我们进行了结构化反思。我们开发了一个关于团队沟通的经验派生框架，然后用它来分析我们的交互实践及其相对有效性。

发现

结果突出了两个未充分研究的影响，为不同目的使用不同的交流方式，以及面对面交流以解决研究中特别具有挑战性的方面的必要性，协商一个共享编码方案来分析不同的文化和语言定性数据。

实际影响

该研究提供了其他人可以用来检查他们的团队沟通的程序和概念。

原创性/价值

很少研究可以限制和促进有效的跨国研究团队合作的交流过程。结果强调需要围绕语言、认识论、文化和目标进行仔细谈判，从合作开始制定项目，通过申请赠款，到最后一篇论文发表——在此类工作越来越多的背景下及时预期的。