Abstract
This study examines from a postcolonial perspective the drivers of sustainability that underpin successful diaspora-induced organizational collaborations. Our qualitative comparative case study of three hospital/Medical school collaborations examines a population of diasporic Lebanese doctors, researchers and administrators working in US hospitals and brokering agreements with the American University of Beirut Medical Center. We observed the skillful cultivation of home-host mutual interests in the activities of ‘dual diasporic agents’, a subset of our sample who demonstrated strong interlocking loyalties to both home and host country organizations. Probing these collaborations at the micro level helped us identify the DDAs’ internal motivations and external realizations to offer a postcolonial appraisal of how successful diasporic workers mobilize their work to counterbalance epistemic violence of the past and reconfigure center-periphery hierarchies. Their successful brokering of collaborative agreements between home and host country organizations enable them to address imbalances in epistemic power and promote sustainable and beneficial forms or organizing for home and host organizations. Since highly-skilled diasporic workers have often been described in terms of brain ‘gain’, ‘drain’, or ‘circulation’, a postcolonial examination of their motivations and practices can present a nuanced understanding of symbolic and real power-knowledge dynamics operate in inter-organizational collaborations.