Collaborative Experience Success Stories in Integrated Care of Older People: A Narrative Analysis

Inter-organisational collaboration is crucial in the care of older people, as is the development of integrated care. Storytelling in organisations is one way of understanding how to achieve successful collaboration. This article provides insights into the ways in which storytelling in collaborative experiences contributes to a collective identity instrumental in the successful collaborations involved in integrated care for older people. Managing cultural diversity is one specific theme in the theory of collaborative advantage; this is used in combination with theories of storytelling in organisations. Interviews with staff from three different municipalities applying three various strategies for integrated care were carried out. Stories of the collaborative experiences were analysed using a narrative approach. The most significant finding was that a similar type of success story was evident across all three municipalities. The story was identified as an epic-comedy story where success was accomplished through the heroic characterisations of the managers, in addition to their improvisation abilities and discretionary work towards common goals. It is suggested that storytelling in collaborative experiences is one way of overcoming cultural frictions between different collaborating actors and may contribute to a coherent sense of a collective identity, thus facilitating further collaboration.