Collaboration and allegory extending the metaphor of organizational culture in the context of interorganizational change

Organizational change no longer can be thought of as a process limited to individual agencies or firms. Change has become interorganizational in nature and carries important cultural implications for participating groups. However, organization theory fails to consider the cultural, mostly symbolic aspects of the shared-change experience. To broaden the understanding of culture and change, we use the literary device, allegory, as an approach to interpreting the diverse narratives emanating from change among multiple organizations. We illustrate the allegorical perspective by discussing our experience with a network of public organizations in the State of Delaware. We show how allegory offers a new way of thinking about culture and interorganizational collaboration, as well as how the device informs an intervention strategy that enables us to more effectively inform change across networks.