Cooperation and Competition as Partners

Abstract

This review addresses the manifestations and consequences of interpersonal cooperation and competition in interdependent, organizational settings. It challenges the applicability of Deutsch's (1949, 1973) game-based cooperation–competition theory. Rather than separate motives and separate behaviours having separate effects, cooperation and competition seem to refer to entwined motives and behaviours moderating each other's impact on dyadic or group effectiveness. The field of cooperation–competition in organizations is in need of a shift of perspective, as well as a revised research agenda including nation-referenced studies. Nation-referenced research places its results in the context of a country's cooperative and competitive cultural values and practices, with mean atmospheric temperature as a rough indicator of the degrees of cooperation and competition to be expected.