The mission of MSI is to promote productive partnerships between business and academics. A successful business-academic research partnership requires, like most relationships, a mutual understanding and trust.
Open communication is essential.
Communication before and during the project is essential for success. It is also important to remember that the goals of business and academia are not coincident. While MSI believes that academics benefit from the realism generated by real problems and access to real business experience and that managers will on average do better if they understand the why behind the how-to, the incongruence of goals means there is inevitably a potential for misunderstanding and conflict. Up-front discussion of roles and output expectations, including time schedules, eliminates needless misunderstanding and conflict. There is no guarantee every project will affect your firm positively and measurably.