Correspondence: Anne S. York, Creighton University, 2500 California Plaza, Omaha, Nebraska 68178, USA. E-mail: anneyork@creighton.edu

¹is associate professor of strategy and entrepreneurship and director of entrepreneurship programmes at Creighton University. She is PI on an NSF grant to train students from law, the natural sciences, medicine and business in the bioscience technology commercialisation process. Her papers have appeared in a variety of journals, including the Strategic Management Journal, Academy of Management Journal, Organization Science, Journal of International Business Studies, Long Range Planning, Journal of World Business, and Journal of Accounting and Public Policy. Her book, Managing in Times of Disorder, is published by Sage, and her PhD is from UNC-Chapel Hill.

²is an MBA student, Graduate Research Assistant, and Bioscience Entrepreneurship Program assistant at Creighton University. She is currently assisting professors with research in management and marketing as well as working on an NSF grant that was established to train students from the disciplines of law, natural sciences, medicine, and business about the bioscience technology commercialisation process. Her research interests include entrepreneurship, organisational behaviour, leadership, and teaming. Her undergraduate degree from Creighton is in marketing. She plans to begin work on her PhD in fall 2009.

³is assistant professor of organisational behaviour and human resource management at Creighton University. His work has appeared in the Journal of Applied Psychology, Korean Journal of Management, Personnel Review, as well as in the SIOP Frontiers volume on Work Motivation. His PhD is from the University of Iowa.

Received 23 September 2008; Revised 23 September 2008.

Abstract

Collaboration across disciplines in the sciences is on the rise. Yet, practitioner papers abound that describe a range of dysfunctional team experiences, especially in contexts where science and business intersect. A critical issue currently preventing successful bioscience commercialisation is management's lack of 'soft skills,' such as the ability to direct complex and functionally diverse teams to achieve productive outcomes. Our paper first reviews the diversity and teaming literature from several disciplinary perspectives in order to better understand how different types of diversity affect team outcomes and processes, as well as how to create higher functioning teams to engage in bioscience technology commercialisation. Research suggests that the 'surface-level' diversity issues associated with demographic and disciplinary differences may diminish over time, as team members move beyond initial stereotypes and gain more knowledge about their fellow group members. However, problems stemming from 'deep-level' diversity such as personality and values differences are more difficult to overcome and require a high degree of interaction frequency among team members, as well as strong communication skills. Going beyond the literature review, we demonstrate how these 'lessons learned' can be addressed through bioscience entrepreneurship education, using a case study of a Midwestern university programme funded by an NSF Partnerships for Innovation grant.