What's useful?

Today I had a rather unproductive day visiting two libraries -- Sacred Heart's Ryan Matura Library and the library at Vaxjo University, Sweden. I was searching for published empirical research on interactions among designers, engineers, and marketers. This was in response to a dinner conversation last night with a design manager from Volvo. When asked what research would be most helpful to the company, she said she was desperate for training materials to help cross-disciplinary groups work better together at all stages of the concept-to-production process. One of Ulla's students had written a report on a project interviewing Vovo designers and engineers as they reflected on a successful project (I did the linguistic editing) and this was, in the design manager's opinion, so insightful that she had given it to engineers in France and they found it very helpful. Here was research that was well-grounded, though methodologically simple, and it was something that a corporate executive was raving about. A good lesson for me about the sorts of projects that would be of interest to practitioners. But, back in the libraries, I could find nothing similar in the "obvious" academic journals and databases. More research is needed!