“clients, Partners and Friends”: Addressing the challenges of developing higher education international collaborations
Open Access
- Author:
- Soler, Fernando Arturo
- Graduate Program:
- Higher Education
- Degree:
- Doctor of Education
- Document Type:
- Dissertation
- Date of Defense:
- October 13, 2015
- Committee Members:
- Leticia Oseguera, Dissertation Advisor/Co-Advisor
Leticia Oseguera, Committee Chair/Co-Chair
Ladislaus M Semali, Committee Member
Roger Lewis Geiger, Committee Member
Karly Sarita Ford, Committee Member
Neal H Hutchens, Special Member - Keywords:
- Collaboration
Higher education
Clients
Partners
Friends
Taxonomy - Abstract:
- There is a high interest in developing international collaborations in higher education as demonstrated by the immense participation of higher education institutions in international conferences, the boom of international joint publications and the great appeal that international education has gained around the world. However, there is also confusion on why and how to develop these collaborations. The literature that informs international collaboration in higher education is disarticulated and therefore confusing. The current study aimed to provide guidance to higher education institutions and their stakeholders on their interests on developing such collaborations by integrating the literature and providing a cohesive theoretical framework or taxonomy to understand international collaboration in higher education. The study also wanted to provide a practical demonstration of its limitations and extremes, as well as the skills needed to manage such collaborations. First, on developing a theoretical framework, the study begins with an exploration of the literature that informs international collaborations in higher education. Next, the study connects the literature by exploring the practice of developing international collaborations at a comprehensive research institution. This connection was reached by proposing the classification of international collaborations in three well distinguished types of collaboration, clients, partners, and friends, and by proposing a chain of reasoning that connects the challenges of developing international collaboration at a comprehensive research university. Having three types of collaboration and a chain of reasoning that integrates the different challenges of developing collaborations allowed the development of a comprehensive framework to understand international collaborations in higher education. Second, by providing a practical demonstration, the study presents the limitations on developing these international collaborations, the skills required for developing those collaborations, the compartmentalization and the repurposing of international collaborative relations, and the negative extremes and mistakes of developing international collaborations in higher education. These findings are derived from a case study of a comprehensive research university. Conditions at other higher education institutions might differ. However, the analytical explanations proposed by the study are general enough to support their extrapolation to other settings in order to contribute to facilitate the development of international collaborations in higher education.