| Over the last decade, there has been a proliferation of international partnerships between universities. These cross-national collaborations offer unique opportunities to create mutually beneficial synergy between and across institutions that can address some of their most pressing issues. Yet, the formation of such relationships between institutions in the Global North and the Global South can be complicated by historically embedded and ongoing issues of equity and power. Despite these challenges, there are several cases that appear to have yielded productive, reciprocal relationships. This dissertation provides an in-depth exploration of two such cases of partnership, one between a university in Senegal and a university in the United States and the other between a university in Kenya and a university in the United States.;Utilizing interorganizational perspectives, this study examines why and how these two relationships were created and have evolved over time. Both partnerships lasted over 20 years, making them ideal sites of study for understanding the factors that play into the success of a Global North-South partnership. Interviews were conducted with 87 administrators, staff, and faculty members. By incorporating voices from each partner institution, this research traces the development of each relationship and provides insight into the factors that have affected each trajectory. The findings suggest the importance and power of individual buy in to partnerships, both in starting the relationships and sustaining them over time. They also point to the ways in which institutional policy and contextual factors can work both for and against such relationships. |
