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Introduction
Publishing is an integral requirement of a university academic's career irrespective of the discipline area, specialisations offered, or country. To facilitate the process, collaboration is a natural catalyst to enhance both the quality and quantity of publications produced. Questions that are often raised in relation to collaboration are, for example: do we want to encourage collaborative research? What are the specific characteristics of effective collaboration? For what specific purposes is collaboration appropriate? ([30] Katsouyanni, 2008, p. 7). Collaboration, like any other team effort, offers both benefits and challenges that need to be addressed if the full benefits are to be achieved. By way of definition, collaborative research can be conceptualized as a research project completed by groups from different disciplines (interdisciplinary collaboration), either belonging to the same country (national) or to more than one country (international). Collaboration may also be parallel research efforts by groups from different countries applying the same protocols across various locations, or by any combination of the above ([30] Katsouyanni, 2008, p. 1). This definition of collaborative research encompasses cross-disciplinary and international research, and hints at the potential complexities involved in collaborative work. In addition to the above discussion, it should be noted that collaborative outcomes can lead to a range of outputs such as conference papers, journal papers or grant and funding applications, as all are likely productive outputs from the collaborative process. Collaborative efforts can also extend beyond authors, encompassing journal editors and peer reviewers, all working towards a successful publication outcome and professional development for the authors ([19] Gilmore et al. , 2006).
While collaborative endeavours are common in the health and medical disciplines, with significant commentary related to those disciplines, the literature on the challenges involved in collaborative research and, specifically, collaborative writing in the academic discipline of business, has been remarkably sparse. This paper seeks to address this deficiency. The intention of this paper is twofold. It seeks first to explore the reasons, benefits, facilitators and challenges associated with collaborative writing. Second, within the context of the business discipline, the paper reflects on the tasks required both administratively and intellectually, specifically in relation to authorship, to be undertaken by authors to address potential difficulties that may arise between collaborators. It is important to...