Analyzing Collaboration as Drama

The need for inter- and intraorganizational collaboration is ubiquitous. People, groups, and organizations work together at all levels to achieve their ends, sometimes (as in a supply chain) for mutual benefit, at others (as in wage negotiations) to satisfy conflicting needs. Viewing these interactions through the metaphor, not of games but of drama, has led to fresh insights. This paper outlines the analytical theory of drama which has been developed and shows how it can be applied to practical situations. The theory, which can be expressed tightly in the mathematics of set theory, demonstrates how six specific tendencies for a situation to change from the impasse which is arrived at through participants' unresolved differences generates distinctive transformations that lead to a new (and possibly resolvable) situation. It thus moves beyond classical game theory by describing “games” which change under the internal pressures which they contain.