Cooperation Competition Research Articles

Economic Competition and Nuclear Cooperation

The number of bilateral nuclear cooperation agreements surged during the “nuclear renaissance” of the past decade. This proliferation is only partially explained by the prevailing approaches that focus on strategic imperatives. To supplement these explanations, this study draws on neoliberal models of economic competition to posit that bilateral agreement negotiations also exhibit conditions of “uncoordinated interdependence” and maneuvering to gain market share. Case evidence suggests the contours of supplier state bids for civilian assistance are determined at least as much by considerations about economic competition as they are by positive strategic goals. In addition, this study identifies several cases of cooperation where there appears to be little or no strategic motive for export agreements. The study concludes that patterns of economic competition and the influence of peers in defined competitive spaces alter material payoffs and impact policies. It also identifies a surprising role for principled restraint in dampening strategic and economic competition in some dyads.

GPS and Driver Log–Based Survey of Grocery Trucks in Chicago, Illinois

Freight demand modeling lags in comparison with passenger demand modeling, largely because of the limited selection of available data. Commercial firms tend to approach inquiries into the operations and finances of their businesses with suspicion or at least impatience. The risk of losing company time or a competitive edge limits potential cooperation. Thus with each advance in data collection, valuable insights into the inner decision making of capitalist industry can be gained. This paper introduces a GPS freight survey conducted in the Chicago, Illinois, metropolitan area in the spring of 2012. The GPS data were augmented by driver diaries and warehouse and distribution center data records that were designed and used for minimizing respondent burden. Data collection focused on and was made possible through the cooperation of a major grocery chain in the region. In total, 108 trip days of GPS traces were obtained and allowed for the examination of lengthy tours between warehouses, distribution centers, and stores. A descriptive analysis of these tours is included with a focus on the spatial and temporal distributions of activities. From these data, approximately 89% of all activities were major work-based activities, and the number of activities per trip had a local maximum of three, by which 32% of all tours abided. The information gathered and presented will be used to supplement future disaggregate modeling exercises.

The Integrated Optimization of Container Port Logistics System Resources

The container port develops from the traditional loading and unloading transportation to the modern comprehensive logistics industry. Its function has made great extension, however the logistics system needs to be further integration optimization , this paper aims at the present stage of the unbalanced development of port container transportation , the service and coordinated ability is weak , the consciousness of cooperative competition is more poorer , the multimodal transportation is imperfection, the construction of information automation lag and so on, proposing measures to strengthen technological innovation , improve the consciousness of cooperative competition , and improve the level of container transportation services , etc. speeding up the integrated optimization of Container port logistics system resources and give full play to the container port overall advantage ,so as to promote competition ability .

Walking the tight rope of coopetition: Impact of competition and cooperation intensities and balance on firm innovation performance

This study empirically investigates an important question in the coopetition literature: to what extent does coopetition impact a firm's innovation performance? With a focus on the intensity of competition and intensity of cooperation of a focal firm with its alliance partners, our theory proposes that a moderate level of competition with alliance partners is more beneficial than a very high or a very low level of competition. We further develop the concept of “balance” in coopetition and examine how the interplay of competition and cooperation and the balance between the two matter for innovation performance. Results from our empirical study using data from the semiconductor industry show that competition and cooperation intensities have non-monotonic positive relationship with firm's coopetition-based innovation performance. Further, balanced coopetition (i.e., when competition is moderately high and cooperation is high) has a positive effect on innovation performance. A key contribution of this paper is the conceptualization and empirical demonstration of the effects of various aspects of coopetition such as competition dominant, cooperation dominant, and balanced coopetition on innovation performance.

Second-order consensus of multi-agent systems in the cooperation–competition network with switching topologies: A time-delayed impulsive control approach

This paper investigates the consensus problem of second-order multi-agent systems with switching topologies by designing a time-delayed impulsive consensus control scheme. All the agents are governed by the same nonlinear intrinsic dynamics. In this study, agents can cooperate or compete with each other, i.e., the elements in the weight matrix of the coupling graph can be either positive or negative. By establishing a comparison system, a new comparison principle method is successfully applied to study such consensus problem. Then, several effective sufficient conditions are attained without assuming that the interaction topology is strongly connected or contains a directed spanning tree. Meanwhile, the exponential consensus rate is also obtained. Finally, simulation results are presented to validate the effectiveness of the theoretical analysis.

Effectiveness of Enforcement Cooperation in Developing Countries: What Role Can Existing Institutions Play?

As trade liberalization has progressed, the gap between the rapid internationalization of markets and the fragmentation of the systems of domestic antitrust laws has meant that competition authorities especially in developing countries have experienced considerable difficulties in fighting the transnational anticompetitive practices which originate abroad but have a negative effect on their domestic markets or to adequately intervene against transnational transactions initiated in other countries but affecting their home markets. To try to address this problem, the international competition community has experimented with a number of possible solutions ranging from a failed attempt to promote a multilateral cooperation system in the area of competition to voluntary bilateral cooperation agreements between developed and developing countries, to the creation of an organization meant to facilitate cooperation in the field of antitrust, the International competition network. So far, those solutions have been mostly unsuccessful (in terms of avoiding international restrictions of competition) and frustrating (since cooperation has proved to be much more difficult than expected) especially for developing countries. Regional agreements on cooperation in competition were considered to be more promising largely because it was believed that the cooperating countries may have more of an incentive to cooperate than pairs of developed and developing countries unequal in size and with different stakes and unbalanced trade flows. However the lack of sufficient financial resources and insurmountable jurisdictional problems have so far impeded for the regional agreements in developing countries to achieve tangible results. Developing countries have to be more inventive and find less costly ways to cooperate. Many steps forward are possible, even without creating supra-national authorities. The example of Australia and New Zealand can be of some help.As for convergence on the procedural and substantive aspects of antitrust law, the OECD, UNCTAD and the ICN all play an important role, with the ICN, specifically designed to meet the challenges facing developing countries. However in order to become more effective in achieving its objectives, the ICN would have to overcome a number of organizational challenges so as to better engage non OECD countries in its activities and ensure that the identification of best practices actually lead to the reduction of transaction costs of firms and to the the creation of a level playing field in terms of procedures and substantive prohibitions.

An elephant on the 13th floor of the Berlaymont? European Council and Commission relations in legislative agenda setting

ABSTRACTWith the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty, the European Council has become an official institution of the European Union (EU). According to the Treaty, it should provide the Union with ‘impetus’ and ‘general political directions and priorities’. The explicit exclusion of any legislative functions seems to demarcate its role clearly from that of the European Commission, which retains the formal monopoly over legislative initiative. However, Treaty provisions have not prevented the European Council and its President from informally setting the agenda in a detailed way, often creating tension with the Commission. By looking into three high profile cases – the energy climate package, economic governance reform and Schengen reform – through the prism of two theoretical approaches – the principal agent model and ‘joint agenda setting’ approach – this article explores patterns of interactions between the two institutions in legislative agenda setting and shows that the relationship can be best defined in terms of ‘competitive cooperation’.

Study on Solar Photovoltaic Industry Chain Vertical Integration Investment Decisions

Five reasons for vertical integration investment are reduction in transaction costs, access to economies of scope, and reduction in risks and damage, upgrading of competitive advantage and strategic profits. Some upstream photovoltaic manufacturing enterprises through analyzing their decision-making behavior for vertical integration of PV industry draw a conclusion that if they invest in their lower counterparts, their vertical integration behavior will come to two effects: competition effects and cooperation effect.

A mathematical model for the evaluation of cooperation and competition effects in intercrops

Experimental results showing cooperation–competition interactions in dual-component crops for mixtures created from Pisum sativum L. (pea), Vicia sativa L. (spring vetch) and Linum usitatisimum L. (linseed) are studied by means of a mathematical model describing the plant interactions. The model introduces parameters enabling to distinguish competition and cooperation between the species in the crop. The model parameters are established on the basis of the entire vegetation period of plants, so they provide exhaustive characteristics of the plant interactions in the mixtures. The model factors allow the estimation of the mixtures with respect to the final biomass yield as well. The experimental data verify possible economic benefits from the proposed plant mixtures and allow to critically check the beliefs that legumes improve the field productivity. Additionally, for comparison with the biomass yield, the seed yield is analyzed in the respective crops. Especially, it is indicated that the increased biomass yield for linseed in the mixture with a leguminous plant is accompanied with a decrease of the seed yield for this species. As concerns pea in the mixture with linseed, a decrease in the pea biomass was registered when compared to the sole crop but at the same time an increase in the seed yield was achieved in the mixture. No influence on the biomass of the spring vetch was noticed when it was cultivated with linseed but its seed yield appeared to be diminished with respect to the sole crop.

The cooperative competitive citizen: What does it take?

Each human group and each society is a complex system of cooperative and competitive relationships. These two relations are intertwined, however, it is not indifferent in what way and to what extent. The present research has aimed at revealing the requirements of cooperative competition which is a competitive process with a high degree of cooperation among the competing parties. The Critical Incident Technique was applied. This procedure is based on the direct observation of human behaviour and was elaborated in order to examine complex interpersonal phenomena and to provide ecological validity. Altogether 483 critical incidents were described by teachers and university students of education. They were instructed to recall competitive relationships that have certain characteristics (e.g. high degree of cooperation among the parties vs no cooperation among the parties; high degree of trust among the parties vs high degree of distrust among the parties, etc.) After the free description of the incident, the participants had to characterize the competitive event along different dimensions on a Likert-scale, for instance intense/not intense competition; rules kept or violated. Applying principal component analysis, four different scales were constructed: the Cooperation Scale (i.e. the relationship among the competitors, cooperation, trust and communication), the Motivation Scale (i.e. motivation, the importance of the goal, development and learning), the Fairness Scale (i.e. rule keeping, no aggression and no manipulation) and the Enjoyment Scale (i.e. enjoyment and positive stress). The correlation analysis of the interrelations among the scales and individual variables has indicated that the high degree of cooperation among the competitors was positively related to fairness, the clarity of rules of competition, enjoyment and motivation. Less cooperation among the competitors was related to higher level stress and more intensive competition among them. If competitive processes are characterized by high degree of cooperation, i.e. they are cooperative competitions that have no detrimental but only beneficial effects, then they combine the constructive aspects of both cooperation and competition.

The cooperative, competitive citizen

Each human group and each society is a complex system of cooperative and competitive relationships. These two relations are intertwined, however, it is not indifferent in what way and to what extent. The present research has aimed at revealing the requirements of cooperative competition which is a competitive process with a high degree of cooperation among the competing parties. The Critical Incident Technique was applied. This procedure is based on the direct observation of human behaviour and was elaborated in order to examine complex interpersonal phenomena and to provide ecological validity. Altogether 483 critical incidents were described by teachers and university students of education. They were instructed to recall competitive relationships that have certain characteristics (e.g. high degree of cooperation among the parties vs no cooperation among the parties; high degree of trust among the parties vs high degree of distrust among the parties, etc.) After the free description of the incident, the participants had to characterize the competitive event along different dimensions on a Likert-scale, for instance intense/not intense competition; rules kept or violated. Applying principal component analysis, four different scales were constructed: the Cooperation Scale (i.e. the relationship among the competitors, cooperation, trust and communication), the Motivation Scale (i.e. motivation, the importance of the goal, development and learning), the Fairness Scale (i.e. rule keeping, no aggression and no manipulation) and the Enjoyment Scale (i.e. enjoyment and positive stress). The correlation analysis of the interrelations among the scales and individual variables has indicated that the high degree of cooperation among the competitors was positively related to fairness, the clarity of rules of competition, enjoyment and motivation. Less cooperation among the competitors was related to higher level stress and more intensive competition among them. If competitive processes are characterized by high degree of cooperation, i.e. they are cooperative competitions that have no detrimental but only beneficial effects, then they combine the constructive aspects of both cooperation and competition.

Comparing feed-forward versus neural gas as estimators: application to coke wastewater treatment

Numerous papers related to the estimation of wastewater parameters have used artificial neural networks. Although successful results have been reported, different problems have arisen such as overtraining, local minima and model instability. In this paper, two types of neural networks, feed-forward and neural gas, are trained to obtain a model that estimates the values of nitrates in the effluent stream of a three-step activated sludge system (two oxic and one anoxic). Placing the denitrification (anoxic) step at the head of the process can force denitrifying bacteria to use internal organic carbon. However, methanol has to be added to achieve high denitrification efficiencies in some industrial wastewaters. The aim of this paper is to compare the two networks in addition to suggesting a methodology to validate the models. The influence of the neighbourhood radius is important in the neural gas approach and must be selected correctly. Neural gas performs well due to its cooperation–competition procedure, with no problems of stability or overfitting arising in the experimental results. The neural gas model is also interesting for use as a direct plant model because of its robustness and deterministic behaviour.

Dynamic cooperative identification based on synergetics for pipe structural health monitoring with piezoceramic transducers

The monitoring of structural integrity for pipes is one potential structural health monitoring (SHM) application using piezoelectric sensor networks. A dynamic cooperative identification method (DCIM) for pipe SHM with lead zirconate titanate (PZT) is proposed based on synergetics in this paper. A cooperative identification model with a cooperation–competition–update process was developed and its cooperative identification kinetic equation was established. With the governing principle, the order parameter equation and its potential function were acquired. On the basis of the synergetic effect principle, the adjoint vector was obtained from the regional vectors. By using the self-organization principle, the evolution of each order parameter was obtained through strict mathematical ratiocination. By implementing the iterative update principle, an online structural condition update feature was realized. Subsequently, the assessment indices were confirmed. Finally, the performance of the proposed methodology for damage identification for a pipe structural model with various connector damage scenarios created by loosening connectors was investigated. The experiments were conducted in a noisy environment, a disturbance rich environment, and a noisy and disturbance rich environment, separately. The results show that the proposed methodology can identify the healthy condition and various damage conditions within an acceptable monitoring range for metal pipes. Furthermore, the DCIM demonstrates a strong ability to reject disturbances and noise in SHM applications. This proposed approach provides an alternative way to carry out damage and fault identification for pipe engineering structures.

Self-Assessment System: Detrimental Effects upon Entrepreneurial and Innovative Activity

Efficient regulatory mechanisms that induce innovation, co-operation and deter competition law infringements have recently been the subject of growing attention. Competition is essential to the innovation process which in general terms enables entrepreneurship. But so too is co-operation between firms which requires an exchange of information and may lead to inefficient collusive behaviour. The optimal trade-off between the provision of stable entrepreneurial incentives and the new European competition law’s reform with the self-assessment system has been largely missing from the current scholarly debate. This paper identifies the unintended horizontal side effects of this new self-assessment system upon the entrepreneurial activity, offers a legal evaluation of the optimal entrepreneurial incentive mechanisms and provides legal and economics arguments for an improved regulatory response.

Complex competitive systems and competitive thermodynamics

This publication reviews the framework of abstract competition, which is aimed at studying complex systems with competition in their generic form. Although the concept of abstract competition has been derived from a specific field--modelling of mixing in turbulent reacting flows--this concept is, generally, not attached to a specific phenomenon or application. Two classes of competition rules, transitive and intransitive, need to be distinguished. Transitive competitions are shown to be consistent (at least qualitatively) with thermodynamic principles, which allows for introduction of special competitive thermodynamics. Competitive systems can thus be characterized by thermodynamic quantities (such as competitive entropy and competitive potential), which determine that the predominant direction of evolution of the system is directed towards higher competitiveness. There is, however, an important difference: while conventional thermodynamics is constrained by its zeroth law and is fundamentally transitive, the transitivity of competitive thermodynamics depends on the transitivity of the competition rules. The analogy with conventional thermodynamics weakens as competitive systems become more intransitive, while strongly intransitive competitions can display types of behaviour associated with complexity: competitive cooperation and leaping cycles. Results of simulations demonstrating complex behaviour in abstract competitions are presented in the electronic supplementary material.

Dynamics of a Market Share Model for Enterprises with Coopetition Strategy

A deterministic model is used to study the change of the market share with coopetition strategy for enterprises. The model takes into consideration both coopetition enterprises and other enterprises, and the coopetition thresholdR0is identified and global dynamics are completely determined byR0. It shows thatR0is a global threshold parameter in the sense that ifR0<1, the coopetition free equilibrium is globally stable and the market share of coopetition enterprises tends to zero, whereas ifR0>1, there is a unique coopetition equilibrium which is globally attractive with some conditions, and thus the market share of coopetition enterprises tends to a steady state value. By some sensitivity analysis ofR0on parameters, we conclude that the size of the coopetition thresholdR0and coopetition equilibrium depended on the cooperation competitiveness of coopetition enterprises.

Democratic Costs in Member‐Controlled Organizations

ABSTRACTIn this study, we examine the costs of democratic control, an important factor affecting the competitiveness of traditional agricultural cooperatives. Although there has been some theoretical discussion about this issue, no empirical research has been done on these costs; the present study aims to bridge this gap. Following the literature, the main source of democratic costs in agricultural cooperatives is the level of member participation in cooperative governance. We have developed more specific theoretical insights about this special kind of decision‐making cost by showing the effect of differences in the level of member participation on democratic costs, differences in terms of democratic and influence costs and in terms of agency costs, and differences between both direct and opportunity democratic costs. Members should take both the relative direct and opportunity costs within total democratic costs into account when determining the optimal size and composition of their board. [EconLit citations: Q130, D790, D230].

Databank Systems Ltd: A Case Study in Co-Operative Competition

The early trapezitai (moneylenders) of Greece are credited with offering the first rudimentary payment system, in which a credit note given to a trader in one Greek port could be cashed with a moneylender in another, thus transferring funds (Lopez, 1979). Today, the provision of a payment system is recognised as essential to economic development (Mishkin, 2001) and can be used to define, along with financial intermediation, modern banks. Just as the ancient trapezitai revolutionised trade, the Bank of New Zealand, in heading up a consortium of New Zealand trading banks in the 1960s, revolutionised banking in this country when it established Databank Systems Ltd (Databank). Databank employed computer technology that was new to New Zealand to centralise the ledger accounts of all trading banks for the clearing of cheques. This paper details the history of Databank, describing its competitive co-operative system and the internal entrepreneurial activities of its founding general manager, Gordon Hogg, in process innovation. Ultimately, Databank achieved what was seen in the late 1960s as near impossible by international senior computer and bank management staff (Shaw, Shaw, Lockery & McCay, 2012).

Optimizing dynamic supply chain formation in supply mesh using CSET model

A new e-Service model called dynamic supply chain is characterized by their dynamic nature in easily being formed and disbanded with the seamless connectivity provided by e-Marketplace. The new term "supply mesh" was coined to represent this virtual community of companies in which dynamic supply chains, as per project (also known as make-to-order), are formed across different tiers of suppliers. In a supply mesh, a dynamic supply chain can be formed vertically, from the top to the bottom layers, mediating different companies for a project. Companies that are on the same level laterally are usually competitors, and the companies that are linked vertically as supply chains are trading partners. From a global view, the companies that are connected in the supply mesh can be viewed as individual entities that have self-interest. They may compete for survival as well as collaborate with each other for jobs. Given such complex relations the challenge is to find an optimal group of members for a dynamic supply chain in the supply mesh. A multi-agent model called the collaborative single machine earliness/tardiness (CSET) model was recently proposed for the optimal formation of make-to-order supply chains. This paper investigates the possibilities of applying CSET in a supply mesh, and the corresponding allocation schemes are experimentally studied in simulations. One scheme called Cost-driven principle leads to destructive competition while the other one namely Pareto-optimal evolves into a cooperative competition that tries to mutually benefit every participant. The results, based on samples from the U.S. textile industry, show that a cooperative competition scheme is superior in terms of optimal allocation, which obtains maximum satisfaction for all participants.

Cooperative Competition for Future Mobility

In May 2011, the Grand Cooperative Driving Challenge (GCDC) was held, providing the possibility for teams to develop and compare their cooperative driving solutions in a competitive setting. The challenge was organized to further accelerate developments in the area of cooperative driving. Nine international teams challenged each other to handle both an urban and a highway scenario. These scenarios have been chosen such that the performance of the implementation of cooperative adaptive cruise control of each participant can be judged. Evaluation of the vehicle behavior has been performed by means of video-based roadside units, installed at the test site in The Netherlands, that is capable of tracking the individual vehicles, in addition to the information obtained through wireless communication. Judgment criteria include both macroscale criteria, such as platoon length and traffic light throughput, and individual criterion, like string stability. Most teams performed well, although clear differences in performance and reliability could be observed. The GCDC showed that it is possible to cooperatively drive with heterogeneous systems. It is envisioned to make the GCDC a regular event and to further extend the active role of roadside communication units, as well as include automated lateral vehicle control.