Distinguish from Corporation.

Cooperation, co-operation, or coöperation^[1] is the process of working or acting together, which can be accomplished by both intentional and non-intentional agents. In its simplest form it involves things working in harmony, side by side, while in its more complicated forms, it can involve something as complex as the inner workings of a human being or even the social patterns of a nation. It is the alternative to working separately in competition. Cooperation can also be accomplished by computers, which can handle shared resources simultaneously, while sharing processor time.

Cooperation, more formally speaking is how the components of a system work together to achieve the global properties. In other words, individual components that appear to be “selfish” and independent work together to create a highly complex, greater-than-the-sum-of-its-parts system. Examples can be found all around us. The components in a cell work together to keep it living. Cells work together and communicate to produce multicellular organisms. Organisms form food chains and ecosystems. People form families, gangs, cities and nations. Neurons create thought and consciousness. Atoms cooperate in a simple way, by combining to make up molecules. Understanding the mechanisms that create cooperating agents in a system is one of the most important and least well understood phenomena in nature, though there has not been a lack of effort.

However, cooperation may be coerced (forced), voluntary (freely chosen), or even unintentional, and consequently individuals and groups might cooperate even though they have almost nothing in common qua interests or goals. Examples of that can be found in market trade, military wars, families, workplaces, schools and prisons, and more generally any institution or organisation of which individuals are part (out of own choice, by law, or forced).

Cooperation vs. competition

While cooperation is the antithesis of competition, the need or desire to compete with others is a common impetus that motivates individuals to organize into a group and cooperate with each other in order to form a stronger competitive force.

Cooperation in many areas, such as farming and housing, may be in the form of a cooperative or, alternately, in the form of a conventional business. A business (also called firm or an enterprise) is a legally recognized organizational entity designed to provide goods and/or services to

Many people resort to this because, they may cooperate by trading with each other or by altruistic sharing.

Certain forms of cooperation are illegal in some jurisdictions because they alter the nature of access by others to economic or other resources. Thus, cooperation in the form of cartels or price-fixing may be illegal. A cartel is a formal (explicit agreement among firms Cartels usually occur in an oligopolistic industry, where there is a small number of sellers and usually involve Price fixing is an agreement between business competitors to sell the same product or service at the same price

A few mechanisms have been suggested for the appearance of cooperation between humans or in natural system

The Prisoner's Dilemma

Even if all members of a group would benefit if all cooperate, individual self-interest may not favor cooperation. The prisoner's dilemma codifies this problem and has been the subject of much research, both theoretical and experimental. The Prisoner's Dilemma constitutes a problem in Game theory. It was originally framed by Merrill Flood and Melvin Dresher Results from experimental economics show that humans often act more cooperatively than strict self-interest would seem to dictate. Experimental economics is a the application of experimental methods to study economic questions

One reason for this may be that if the prisoner's dilemma situation is repeated (the iterated prisoner's dilemma), it allows non-cooperation to be punished more, and cooperation to be rewarded more, than the single-shot version of the problem would suggest. The Prisoner's Dilemma constitutes a problem in Game theory. It was originally framed by Merrill Flood and Melvin Dresher It has been suggested that this is one reason for the evolution of complex emotions in higher life forms, who, at least as infants, and usually thereafter, cannot survive without cooperating - although with maturation they gain much more choice about the kinds of cooperation they wish to have. An emotion is a mental and physiological state associated with a wide variety of feelings thoughts and behaviours

There are four main conditions that tend to be necessary for cooperative behaviour to develop between two individuals:

• An overlap in desires
• A chance of future encounters with the same individual
• Memory of past encounters with that individual
• A value associated with future outcomes

See also

• collaboration
• teamwork
• game theory
• Management cybernetics

References

• The Evolution of Cooperation, Robert Axelrod, Basic Books, ISBN 0-465-02121-2
• The Complexity of Cooperation, Robert Axelrod, Princeton Paperbacks, ISBN 0-691-01567-8
• The Selfish Gene, Richard Dawkins (1990), second edition -- includes two chapters about the evolution of cooperation, ISBN 0-19-286092-5
• The Seven Challenges: A Workbook and Reader About Communicating More Cooperatively, Dennis Rivers, fourth edition, 2005 -- treats cooperation as a set of skills that can be improved. Collaboration is a recursive process where two or more people or organizations work together toward an intersection of common goals — for example an intellectual A general dictionary defines teamwork as a " Cooperative or coordinated effort on the part of a group of persons acting together as a team or in the interests of a common Game theory is a branch of Applied mathematics that is used in the Social sciences (most notably Economics) Biology, Engineering, Management cybernetics is the field of Cybernetics concerned with Management and Organizations. The Evolution of Cooperation the title of a 1981 article and a related 1984 book by Political science professor Robert Axelrod. Robert Axelrod (born 1943 is a Professor of Political Science and Public Policy at the University of Michigan. The Complexity of Cooperation is the sequel to The Evolution of Cooperation. Robert Axelrod (born 1943 is a Professor of Political Science and Public Policy at the University of Michigan. Clinton Richard Dawkins, FRS, FRSL (born 26 March 1941 is a British ethologist, evolutionary biologist, and Popular science
• Herbert Gintis, Samuel Bowles, Robert T. Boyd, Ernst Fehr (eds. ), Moral Sentiments and Material Interests: The Foundations of Cooperation in Economic Life (Economic Learning and Social Evolution). MIT 2005
• John McMurtry, "How Competition Goes Wrong. " Journal of Applied Philosophy, 8(2): 200-210, 1991.

Notes

1. ^ The third variant is now somewhat rare. This is a rare example of a diacritic not borrowed from any foreign language, but purely of English origin (compare the original French coopération). A diacritic ( also called a diacritic or diacritical mark, point, or sign, is a small sign added to a letter to alter pronunciation See the list of English words with diacritics for other examples

External links

• PDF The Cooperation Project: Objectives, Accomplishments, and Proposals [rheingold. Below is a list of English language Words that have letters with diacritical marks com Howard Rheingold's project with Institute for the Future.
• cooperation platform for transport research (scientific) more
• The Far Games A list of games using theatrical improvisation to encourage collaboration and distributed leadership