The theme of the research will be on intergroup leadership with a special focus on the different forms of leadership occurring when two or more groups are made to work together. The setting is optimally found in a pre-merger stage or in an organizational or inter-organizational project. To create a proper understanding, a broad variety of concepts will be utilized such as various understandings of identity work, the ingroup/outgroup trade-off in leadership, and psychological empowerment. This will be done from a relational leadership perspectiveWith the investigation, I aim to gain a deeper understanding of how to make distinctive groups work better together in a specific setting. By taking the relational leadership perspective, the research allows for inclusion of context-specific factors such as historical experiences, cultural differences/similarities, as well as individual preferences. Together this can help identify forms of leadership in an intergroup work mode that not necessarily derive from the managers/formal leaders.

The aim of the thesis is to creater a better understanding of what it takes to make teams work better together. This can have consequences for the way a company organize intergroup collaborations. It can also help the company better identify the kinds of leadership occuring in the organization, leading them to be better positioned to nurture untraditional forms of leadership. Another possible insight is the real value of undertaking intergroup projects and different forms of organizing the everyday work. I truly believe the research will produce insights valuable for companies who participate in integroup work - both internally and with other companies. 

The motivation is to combine an increasingly applied work-form - the intergroup collaboration - with the insights a relational leadership perspective can produce. From my leadership course I identified new forms of leadership that spoke more clearly to me than the way we traditionally have thought about leadership. To be able to create a deeper understanding of these forms of leadership in a practical and applicable sense motivates my work, and it all builds on the belief that both I and others can use the results in practical situations later. 

The thesis process is a perfect occasion to create practical insight, which is what I aim to do. After soon 5 years as a university student I believe in good methodological processes. When these good methodological principles are combined with a practical focus, the results will be well-grounded and thoroughly researched. At the same time, they will be easy to apply in the real-life situations. The ability to create such results is the reason why a collaboration with me will turn out valuable.