Motivation For Cooperation Research Articles

Competition–cooperation interplay during multifirm technology coordination: The effect of firm heterogeneity on conflict and consensus in a technology standards organization

Research Summary: We examine how competitive tensions and cooperative motivations together shape firms’ interactions and group‐level outcomes during technology coordination activities in multifirm settings. Analyzing the communication and voting behavior of 115 firms across three subcommittees of a computing industry technology standards‐setting organization over 14 years, we find that existing product‐market positions influence how firms with highly overlapped technological resources differ in their interactions: when their product‐markets are more competitive, they exhibit greater support for the emerging standard, as evidenced by positivity and certainty of interaction tone; but when they possess a broader array of complementary products, support is tempered. At the subcommittee level, after accounting for aggregate competitive tensions in prior interactions, heterogeneity in both firms’ relational influence as well as their prior multiparty experience improve consensus. Managerial Summary: In innovation ecosystems, competing firms are often obligated to collaborate with each other in large multifirm forums to develop the technical standards that enable interoperability between their products. We show how the networks of technical and commercial relationships between firms shape such standards activities in two steps. First, firms who share many common technology interests with others communicate their support for new standards more vigorously when they participate in more competitive product‐markets, but less vigorously when they possess more complementary products. Second, communities find broader support for standards when there is greater imbalance across both firms’ prior collaborative experiences as well as their pattern of relationships. We demonstrate these results in a study of 115 firms participating in computer peripherals standards development over 14 years.

A problem of embeddedness

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to propose a general micro-theoretical framework that helps to understand the embeddedness of trade unions within the European system of industrial relations, and the consequences of this embeddedness for industrial relations outcomes. First, starting from the paradoxical observation of a trend towards homogeneity within a complex, multi-layered European industrial relations system consisting of heterogeneous and autonomous agents, the paper aims to explicate the mechanisms which produce these similarities. Second, the paper seeks to analyse potential mechanisms for transnational trade union cooperation and, third, it concludes by outlining its applicability as the basis for methodological approaches which enable realistic and policy relevant analyses.Design/methodology/approachThis paper is conceptual and focusses on the development of a general micro-theoretical framework which captures European industrial relations actors’ behaviour and outcomes. It integrates theoretical and empirical accounts from differing social science disciplines and from various methodological starting points on trade union action and interaction into one general micro-theoretical framework.FindingsStarting from a typology of trade union goals, the authors show how various social mechanisms lead to interdependencies between trade unions and review empirical evidence for their consequences. The authors, then, identify a set of motives for transnational cooperation that would allow outcomes that are in line with trade union objectives.Originality/valueAgainst the background that previous studies on trade union action and cross-national interaction have paid less attention to the puzzling stylised fact that industrial relations outcomes are mimicked by heterogeneous and autonomous agents actors in different countries, the authors address this research gap by developing a novel general micro-theoretical framework for the analysis of transnational trade union action and interaction in order to better understand the underlying causal mechanisms for the common behaviour and outcomes of autonomous actors.

Interaction of Russia and China in the Framework of the “Silk Road”

The article considers the issues of strengthening the integration of the Russian Federation in the Eurasian transport system on the basis of the project of the New Silk Road in the context of broadening cooperation with China. The author identified and summarized the motives of cooperation between the countries, the current status of the project implementation, the problems of its further development. Author's position is justified by the ratio of the interest of Russian and Chinese sides to accelerate the practical implementation of the project.

Sports, home and health as motives for German-Polish school cooperation

The following paper contains a report on an international school project – GESZKO ‒, that had been taking place in the border area of Saxony and Poland in the school years 2011/12, 2012/13 and 2013/14. The main theme of the activities at 13 schools were health, sport and home region. After the end of the project the team at the University of Applied Science in Zittau/Görlitz is evaluating the entire project and is going to publish a manual for German-Polish school partnerships.

Preparing Professionals for Working in Multicultural and Democratic Europe: Two Pedagogical Programs – Their Assessment and Collaborations

There has been continuous debate concerning policies and practices regarding intercultural education in the multicultural Europe and intercultural competence has become one of the crucial issues today. There is an urgent need to educate students about the limitations of using their own cultural frame to interpret and evaluate people belonging to a different cultural background. For quite long intercultural communication courses were typically offered for students in Education, International Relations, Business, and a like programs, while this subject was out of scope until the last few years in other disciplines. However, recent social and political changes are forcing program developers to work on a general intercultural preparation of professionals from all backgrounds.
 There is an educational need to focus on how to prepare interculturally competent students, to act in a drastically changing society as true global citizens, who have a motivation for civic engagement and contribute to their community. More than that, according to the new framework by the Council of Europe, there is a political need for the new generation of young people to get involved with the democratic society in an active way (Council of Europe, 2016).
 This paper presents two similar structures for a long-term intercultural program, where civic mindedness receives an important scope (Guntersdorfer and Golubeva, 2017). These programs can be offered to students from all disciplines in higher education. Both educational efforts aim to broaden knowledge of the meaning of culture by providing students with theories from linguistics, psychology, sociology, ethnology, and political science. Although pedagogical set-up slightly differ, there is a strong motivation for cooperation. The following article provides a description of the theoretical and pedagogical concepts of these two programs, draws on research plans and assessment methods, and lays down the groundwork for a collaboration.

Why ASEAN is Cooperating in the Education Sector?

Over the last few years ASEAN member states have begun collaborating more tightly in the tertiary education sector, which has led to a cooperation agreement with the European Union to help harmonize and lift the overall standard of tertiary education in the region. However, the broader question is - why is that the case? Education is not considered a classical field of regional integration, and this chapter seeks to analyze various sources - which include references from elitist circles, as well as the public sphere - in order to identify the motivation for cooperation in the education sector through qualitative content analysis. The analysis is based on a theoretical framework, which incorporates both a neofunctionalist approach and a norm diffusion approach which show that the predominant factors behind this cooperation process are economic.

Combatting terror in Europe: Euro-Israeli counterterrorism intelligence cooperation in the Club de Berne (1971–1972)

How do intelligence agencies cooperate to counter terrorism and to what extent can it be (ab)used for political purposes? This article focuses on the Club de Berne, an intelligence liaison forum that was founded in 1969 by nine Western European countries and which was also linked to the United States and Israel. This article explores the mechanisms of counterterrorism intelligence-sharing in the early 1970s and examines the motives for cooperation within this framework. On the basis of large-scale recently declassified intelligence records, the article uncovers new aspects in the history of European security cooperation with Israel and the United States, and hopes to lay the groundwork for broader theoretical reflections about counterterrorism intelligence cooperation.

Evidence for strategic cooperation in humans.

Humans may cooperate strategically, cooperating at higher levels than expected from their short-term interests, to try and stimulate others to cooperate. To test this hypothesis, we experimentally manipulated the extent an individual's behaviour is known to others, and hence whether or not strategic cooperation is possible. In contrast with many previous studies, we avoided confounding factors by preventing individuals from learning during the game about either pay-offs or about how other individuals behave. We found clear evidence for strategic cooperators-just telling some individuals that their groupmates would be informed about their behaviour led to them tripling their initial level of cooperation, from 17 to 50%. We also found that many individuals play as if they do not understand the game, and their presence obscures the detection of strategic cooperation. Identifying such players allowed us to detect and study strategic motives for cooperation in novel, more powerful, ways.

Secondhand social capital: Boundary spanning, secondhand closure, and individual performance

We move beyond the performance returns of individuals’ direct network connections to study the effects of “secondhand” social capital, i.e., from the networks of one’s contacts. We propose that certain colleagues may be more valuable to one’s job performance than others when their spillovers of novel information combine with spillovers of the cooperation needed to obtain that novelty. In a study of 1273 research and development employees across 16 business units, we find that the most benefit to one’s own performance comes from having ties that span business units and that also include secondhand closure (i.e., where one’s contacts are each embedded in a constrained, dense network). Bridging the organizational boundary provides the novelty; and secondhand closure provides the cooperation. Further, by examining who in the network is constraining these contacts, we are able to trace their cooperative motivation both to reputational and organizational identity concerns, which each create a spillover of cooperation toward the focal individual, who reaps the returns.

The Role of Ontogeny in the Evolution of Human Cooperation

To explain the evolutionary emergence of uniquely human skills and motivations for cooperation, Tomasello et al. (2012, in Current Anthropology 53(6):673–92) proposed the interdependence hypothesis. The key adaptive context in this account was the obligate collaborative foraging of early human adults. Hawkes (2014, in Human Nature 25(1):28–48), following Hrdy (Mothers and Others, Harvard University Press, 2009), provided an alternative account for the emergence of uniquely human cooperative skills in which the key was early human infants’ attempts to solicit care and attention from adults in a cooperative breeding context. Here we attempt to reconcile these two accounts. Our composite account accepts Hrdy’s and Hawkes’s contention that the extremely early emergence of human infants’ cooperative skills suggests an important role for cooperative breeding as adaptive context, perhaps in early Homo. But our account also insists that human cooperation goes well beyond these nascent skills to include such things as the communicative and cultural conventions, norms, and institutions created by later Homo and early modern humans to deal with adult problems of social coordination. As part of this account we hypothesize how each of the main stages of human ontogeny (infancy, childhood, adolescence) was transformed during evolution both by infants’ cooperative skills “migrating up” in age and by adults’ cooperative skills “migrating down” in age.

Increasing Student Activity and Motivation: Implementation of Cooperative Learning Models Type Teams Game Tournament

<span id="result_box" lang="en"><span>The main aim of this research is to apply a cooperative learning model that is cooperative learning model type TGT (Team Game Tournament) to increase student activity and motivation in biodiversity material, implemented in SMP Negeri 1 Kokop Bangkalan.</span> <span>As the subject of this class action research is the students of class VIID with 31 students.</span> <span>Based on the results of classroom action research that has been done, it can be concluded that science learning material of diversity of living creatures by using cooperative learning model TGT, learning activities and student motivation increased this can be seen from the test of student learning outcomes in the form of prestest and posttest. And the average value of questionnaire</span> <span>of motivation has given positive respons. It means motivation student increasing. </span> </span>

The influences of social value orientation on prosocial behaviors: The evidences from behavioral and neuroimaging studies

“Economic Man Assumption” proposed that humans are rational, whose only goal is to pursue their maximum self- interest. However, costly prosoial behaviors, such as helping, comforting, or donation, are commonly seen in daily life. Researchers put forward social value orientation (SVO) to explain why people exhibit such behaviors. SVO refers to a stable preference for outcomes for self versus others in interdependent situation, which further affects prosocial behaviors in social dilemmas. The commonly used measurements of SVO are the Triple-Dominance Scale and the Slider Measure. Based on these measures, SVO is classified into two categories: prosocial value orientation, and proself value orientation. The latter one is further subdivided to individualistic and competitive value orientations. People with prosocial orientation tend to maximize joint interest, people with individualistic orientation tend to maximize absolute outcome, while people with competitive orientation tend to maximize relative outcome. Previous studies have suggested that SVO can express automatically, and stably influence social behaviors. This article reviewed existing researches and mainly discusses its influence on trust behavior, cooperation and fair decisions in social contexts. A growing body of evidence suggests that prosocial individuals show more trust behaviors, cooperation, and fair decisions, which are further reflected on neural activities. Specifically, temporal-parietal junction (TPJ), insula and anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) show stronger activation when prosocials choose to cheat compared to be honest/trustworthy in trust game, while for proselfs there are no significant differences. In social dilemma games, prosocials show more cooperative behavior, accompanied by increased activation in lateral orbitofrontal cortex (OFC), anterior superior temporal sulcus (aSTS) and inferior parietal lobule, which brain regions are relevant to norm compliance, routine moral judgment, and social awareness. While for proselfs, increased activation is found in dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), which is relevant to calculation. Researches have also found prosocials make more rejection to unfair allocation, and the degree of inequity aversion in prosocials is predictable from amygdala activity. In light of existing literature, we summarized four aspects of how SVO affects prosocial behaviors. The first one is that prosocials have a stronger internal cooperation motivation relative to proselfs so that prosocial behaviors are processed automatically for prosocials. Second, prosocials have a higher expectation of others’ prosocial behaviors, this expectation in turn influences himself/herself’s behaviors. The third is that prosocial ones show more social responsibility in social interaction that they tend to maximize joint outcome. Last but not least, individuals with different SVOs show different social learning patterns which affects information collection and decision making during social interaction. Before the end, we propose several research directions. First is the differences in social learning patterns between individuals with different SVOs. Secondly, the interactive effects of SVO and other personality traits, such as empathy and trust, on prosocial behavior need to be investigated. More neural biochemical researches which focus on neurotransmitter as well as gene of different SVOs are also required. At last, in order to better apply research results to real life, ecological validity of research need to be improved.

Why cooperate with others? Demystifying China's trilateral aid cooperation

ABSTRACTThis article examines China's motivations for trilateral aid cooperation in the context of its seemingly assertive diplomacy in recent years. Previously known for its preference for bilateral aid delivery, China, however, is increasingly conducting trilateral cooperation with western donor states and UN agencies. By employing constructivism and cognitive learning theories, this paper focuses on two perspectives: China's calculation of national interests and international engagement, and is structured around two case studies: UNDP's advisory role for China on development cooperation, and China–US trilateral aid cooperation. It argues that strategically, China is putting growing emphasis on its identity as a growing great power in the development sector, using trilateral cooperation to build its global image. Technically, China's four-decade long external engagement has promoted changes in its ideas about aid cooperation, thus reinforcing its desire for cognitive learning to improve its aid performance.

Emotions in a repeated Cournot duopoly game: A psychophysiological experiment.

The reason why cooperation occurs in repeated games has remained a puzzle. Earlier literature has maintained that reciprocal behavior that gives rise to cooperation can be entirely self-regarding. However, experimental evidence shows that reciprocal behavior is other-regarding in many one-shot games. This other-regarding behavior is believed to have an emotional foundation. We hypothesized that emotions play a role in reciprocal behavior in repeated games as well. We tested this hypothesis by measuring the psychophysiological correlates of emotions from pairs of subjects as they played a repeated Cournot duopoly game. The players, who were in different rooms and remained anonymous to each other, made adjustment decisions to their production quantities that determined their payoffs in each round. Autonomic nervous system arousal was activated when the payoffs of both players decreased in a round, whereas positive affect was expressed when the payoffs of both players increased in a round. The disgust expression was related to a player's own one-sided increase in the payoff. Anger was expressed occasionally but less frequently when the outcome was the player's ideal outcome. An upwards adjustment of the production quantity was observed when the other player did not cooperate. This had the effect of decreasing the payoffs of both players and this was also related to an increase in the level of arousal. Our results provide evidence on how emotions are present in reciprocal behavior in a repeated social dilemma game. The results challenge recent behavioral research that advocates self-regarded motivations of cooperation in repeated games.

Cooperatives and alternative food networks in Italy. The long road towards a social economy in agriculture

In the context of a special issue of the Journal of Rural Studies on more-than-economic motivations for farmers’ cooperation, this article aims to analyse the tensions and contending views of the cooperative movement in Italy with special attention to the agricultural sector and to the emergence of the new model of social cooperatives in the last decades of the 20th century. We interpret this emergence and its codification in law as the decoupling of more-than-economic motivations of cooperation from the mainstream Italian cooperative sector and their reinstatement in a new, but separate model of social cooperation more closely linked to community- and solidarity-oriented initiatives.The presence of institutional tensions and frictions hints at the fact that cooperatives have a multi-faced nature expressed in the not always easy co-existence of a cooperative economy and a cooperative movement. After the II World War, as Italian cooperatives in general and particularly agricultural cooperatives moved towards a productivist model and a ‘competitive market’ paradigm, the more-than-economic aspects have continued to inspire movements for social and community economies. In the 1990s the social economy project was appropriated but somehow ‘sanitized’ by the cooperative movement through the legally sanctioned establishment of social cooperatives and their confinement to specific sections within national cooperative federations. Later on, while the emergence of social cooperatives has had little influence on the functioning and orientation of traditional agricultural cooperatives and federations, the reinstatement of a social function for agriculture has taken place at the much more fluid interface between social cooperation, on the one hand, and civic agriculture movements rooted in alternative food networks and community-oriented initiatives, on the other. It is only recently that the cooperative movement has tried catch up with the new paradigms of alternative agriculture and rural development through the experimentation at regional level of the cooperative di comunità (community cooperatives), that operate to re-affirm the role of multifunctional and multi-stakeholder cooperatives in rural/territorial development.

Suffering and Mindfulness: A Neo-Darwinian Perspective

Suffering and MindfulnessA Neo-Darwinian Perspective Tadeusz W. Zawidzki 1. Introduction Cultivating a form of awareness of embodied experience unmediated by discursive conceptualizations is a theme common to many Buddhist meditative practices, as well as contemporary, mindfulness-based psychotherapeutic interventions. In fact, in some Buddhist traditions, seeing through conventional, discursive conceptualizations to their ultimate emptiness is the key to escaping suffering (Nāgārjuna, MMK 25:24; Garfield 2015). This feature of Buddhist approaches to well-being distinguishes it from most if not all European philosophical and psychotherapeutic traditions. For example, discursive conceptualization is essential to Platonic and Aristotelian theories of human well-being (Annas 2011). In addition, it seems at odds with a contemporary, scientific, neo-Darwinian understanding of the human mind. In many versions of the neo-Darwinian picture of the mind, discursive conceptualizations are, ultimately, products of cognitive mechanisms selected in evolution because they generate accurate representations of the world and our place in it (Millikan 1984; Barkow et al. 1992; Pinker 1997). How else could cognitive mechanisms be adaptive? If this is true, then one should not expect practices aimed at neutralizing such discursive conceptualizations to yield mental well-being: how can not employing conceptualizations selected in evolution for their accuracy be adaptive? This seems analogous to not relying on evolved components [End Page 36] of the body for physical health, for example, like trying to circulate the blood effectively without help from the heart. I think this apparent puzzle is illusory. In the following pages, I argue that a proper understanding of the evolutionary roots of our discursive conceptualizations, and especially our discursive self-conceptualizations, is consistent with the Buddhist-inspired hypothesis that easing suffering requires a kind of liberation from them. Moreover, it can actually explain the therapeutic value of mindfulness, understood at least partly as a way of cultivating awareness of embodied experience unmediated by discursive conceptualizations. In section 1, I explain and defend a neo-Darwinian theory of the functions of our discursive self-conceptualizations, according to which they are selected not for accuracy but for their efficacy as coordination devices. The basic idea is that the mechanisms generating our discursive self-conceptualizations were selected to shape us into good coordination partners on cooperative projects, relative to our ambient social circumstances. In section 2, I look more closely at the proximate, neurally implemented means by which discursive self-conceptualizations succeed in shaping us in these ways. I argue that these mechanisms typically rely on negative affect, like aversion and other fearlike responses, to shape us to conform to our discursive self-conceptualizations. If this is true, then discursive self-conceptualizations are likely to cause a lot of psychological trauma. It is no surprise, therefore, that practices aimed at cultivating a kind of awareness unmediated by discursive conceptualizations, like Buddhist-inspired mindfulness-based therapies, can help ease a very human-specific form of suffering. In section 3, I apply this neo-Darwinian perspective to two related controversies about mindfulness: (1) whether it should indeed aim at a form of experience that is independent of discursive conceptualization, and (2) how to conceive of the liberation from suffering of which mindfulness is supposed to be a necessary component. 2. Darwinian Functions of Discursive Self-Conceptualization The human talent at social coordination is well known. More than any other mammal, humans can coordinate on large-scale cooperative projects. There are a number of components to this talent that appear unique to our species. For example, we often coordinate on cooperative projects with people of whom we have very little personal knowledge, and coordination often involves very large numbers of individuals in extended periods of interaction. [End Page 37] It is notoriously difficult to explain the evolution of this notable, distinguishing feature of human sociality. There are two puzzling components of human coordination on cooperative projects: (1) cooperative motivations and (2) coordinative skill. It is difficult to explain the prevalence of cooperative motivations in human populations since these seem susceptible to undermining by free riders. Free riders should thrive in populations initially dominated by cooperatively motivated individuals, since they can reap the benefits of cooperation without paying the costs. Thus...

Affective Synchrony and Autonomic Coupling during Cooperation: A Hyperscanning Study.

Previous research highlighted that during social interactions people shape each other's emotional states by resonance mechanisms and synchronized autonomic patterns. Starting from the idea that joint actions create shared emotional experiences, in the present study a social bond was experimentally induced by making subjects cooperate with each other. Participants' autonomic system activity (electrodermal: skin conductance level and response: SCL, SCR; cardiovascular indices: heart rate: HR) was continuously monitored during an attentional couple game. The cooperative motivation was induced by presenting feedback which reinforced the positive outcomes of the intersubjective exchange. 24 participants coupled in 12 dyads were recruited. Intrasubject analyses revealed higher HR in the first part of the task, connoted by increased cognitive demand and arousing social dynamic, while intersubject analysis showed increased synchrony in electrodermal activity after the feedback. Such results encourage the use of hyperscanning techniques to assess emotional coupling in ecological and real-time paradigms.

Study on Community Cooperation Game of the Main Body in Regional Innovation Ecosystem

Cooperative innovation of heterogeneous population is more and more important in regional innovation ecosystem, and cross-border cooperation has become one of the effective ways to break through the predicament of ecological niche development. However, the existence of opportunistic behavior will restrain the cooperation motivation among the main communities and threaten the stability of the ecosystem population cooperation network. In order to avoid possible speculation, participants tend to make commitments beforehand. However, how can the commitment effectively avoid partner speculation so as to improve cooperation performance? In this paper, we will study the community game strategy of main body in innovation under multivariate uncertainty, and analyze the impact of commitment on collaborative innovation action.

“The Cyclone Which is at the Heart of Things”: The Cyclone as Trope of Place and Apocalypse in Queensland Literature

In order to better understand and respond to the tropics as part of the global environment, we need to accept the unique features of the regional weather, such as cyclones, and be prepared to embrace their larger meaning for life in the tropics. In a physical landscape impacted by some 207 tropical cyclones since 1858, Queensland writers have attempted to incorporate both the terror and the sublime of the cyclone into their sense of place as they have attempted to find context for the unpredictable, chaotic and destructive tropical cyclone within their ostensibly tamed and ordered natural landscape. Consequently, the cyclone has become a defining symbolic metaphor of not only physical but also of literary tropical Queensland.Some Queensland writers have perceived within cyclones the Burkean sublime or personal revelation, while others have seen it as motivation for community strength, cooperation and compassion. For some, the purpose of the cyclone is divine retribution, but to others it’s an apocalyptic event revealing a rare second chance for revelation and renewal. This paper will examine a range of such perceptions within Queensland literature as part of the search for meaning within cyclonic chaotic events.

Exploring cooperation and competition in the Centipede game through verbal protocol analysis

AbstractThe Centipede game is an abstract model of reciprocal relationships in which two individuals alternate in helping each other at relatively small personal cost. Whereas mutual cooperation can benefit both individuals in the long run, a paradoxical but logically compelling backward induction argument suggests that cooperation is irrational. Empirical studies have reported reliable deviations from the non‐cooperative backward induction solution, but their exclusively quantitative methods allow only a limited range of predefined motives to be explored. Our study uses verbal (‘think aloud’) protocols and qualitative data analysis to identify motives for cooperation in the Centipede game. The results provide little evidence for sophisticated backward induction reasoning. Instead, a wide range of motives emerged, their relative saliences varying according to the stage of the game. Activity bias affected decisions mainly at the beginning of the game, whereas cooperative and altruistic social value orientations most frequently accounted for cooperation towards its natural end.