Managing international, intercultural, and interdisciplinary collaboration in health and wellbeing capacity building: lessons learned within the CASO higher education project

Abstract

In defining successful collaborative international projects within the theory of change or logic model, focus is often on ‘outcome’ and ‘impact’. Less empirical information is available regarding the ‘input’ and ‘activities’ aspects of this model. To address this knowledge gap and to offer insight into pivotal elements for management, this study focused on the lessons learned from the development and management of the international, intercultural, and interdisciplinary collaboration Caring Society (CASO) project. A needs analysis among project members was performed using a cross-sectional questionnaire with 31 multiple-choice and 10 open-ended questions. The combined quantitative and qualitative findings resulted in seven key elements being identified: information/communication, personal capacity building, finance, organization, time, facility, and quality. These elements are related in that the elements information/communication and organization play a central role with the element time mediating this role. Other elements such as finance, facility, and quality are on a secondary level of importance while personal capacity building is a meaningful outcome. The lessons learned from managing CASO as an international, intercultural, and interdisciplinary project are that: (1) managers should focus on how information is structured and disseminated as this increases the quality of organizational processes, (2) open dialogue through hybrid communication methods foster better levels of accountability and ownership of tasks, also leading to personal capacity development, enhancing a sense of belonging, and development of intercultural and interdisciplinary competencies, and (3) the role of finances, time and resources cannot be ignored as these impact quality, management, and organization of international projects.