COOPERATION, Managing Co-op

and SMEs
COMPETITION & INDIVIDUAL 2nd Session,
September 6th 2016
EFFORT
 POPULAR BELIEFS

Competition always keep prices in balance  assumption of classical

economic theories
Free market forces will eventually bring equilibrium and equity to all
players
This assumption has so permeated our entire culture  competition
not always be good for us at all, it may be our downfall.
 THREE MODELS OF ACHIEVEMENT

Competition
 A game in which players attempt to accumulate points and win by getting more points than
others
 Zero-sum game
 Winner versus Losser
Cooperation
 A game in which all players may attempt to accumulate points for the entire group by
using their unique capabilities and talents
 Process orientation rather than rule & result orientation
 Win-win game
Individual effort
 No social interaction
 Can be more creative or imaginative than group process
 STUDYING COOPERATION

Cooperative action “...results from perceived positive

interdependence resulting in an interaction pattern among
participants within which members promote each other’s success”
 David and Roger Johnson identified 1,325 empirical and quantitative studies
comparing cooperation, competition, and individual effort and commenced a meta-
analysis of them to synthesize their most significant conclusions.
 STUDYING COOPERATION

Which one is the most effective Outcomes of studies:

under what circumstances?  Productivity measurement
 And in what particular type of activities?  Individual and group achievement
 Effectiveness: productivity, achievement  Quality of reasoning
and problem-solving
 Process gain/loss
Should cooperation, competition,
 Transfer of the group gains(losses)
and individual efort vary with the
to the individuals in the group
type of task?
 Might cooperation be called for it in
certain situations and competition or
individual effort in others?
 Could a mixture of approaches work
better in some situations?
 PRODUCTIVITY/ACHIEVMENT

The assessment of productivity or achievement involve a simple

measure of the degree to which goals are attained
The data used by Johnsons generally indicate that cooperation will
produce a higher level of productivity and achievement tahn will
either competition or individual effort
 Over 50% of findings were strongly in favor of cooperation, while only 10% favored
either competitive or individualistic groups.
 QUALITY OF REASONING

How is the relationship of cooperative models and the quality of

reasoning?
Definitions of “quality of reasoning” follows Kohlberg’s (1981)
refinements in stages of moral development
 Stage 1: Obey authorities in order to avoid punishment
 Stage 2: Satisfy one’s own needs, such as exchange of goods, or specific rewards
for behaving morally
 Stage 3: Folow customary moral standards to obtain approval, regard, or liking
 Stage 4: Obey law and order to preserve social harmony
 Stage 5: Rely on internalized personal standards of social responsibility
 Stage 6: Rely on internalized moral principles believed to be universally valid
 QUALITY OF REASONING

Cooperation definetely enhances quality of reasoning

 Studies using Piaget’s ang Kohlberg’s theories of cognitive and moral development
have discovered that transitions to higher levels of reasoning are promoted by
cooperative activities
 When persons express differences of opinion, thinking is enhanced (Johnson and
Johnson, 1989)
 META COGNITIVE STRATEGIES

Metacognitive strategies refers to methods used to help individual

understand the way they learn; in other words, it means processes
designed for individual to 'think' about their 'thinking'.
Metacognition refers to awareness of one’s own knowledge, and one’s
ability to understand, control, and manipulate one’s cognitive
processes (Meichenbaum, 1985)
 Metacognition is the ability to use prior knowledge to plan a strategy fo approaching a
learning task, take necessary steps to problem solve, reflect on evaluate results, and
modfy one’s approach as needed
A group of reseracher did in fact discover that emphasis on meta-
cognitive tasks promoted even higher achievement in cooperation as
compared to individual effort
 PROCESS GAIN/LOSS & GROUP-TO-INDIVIDUAL
TRANSFER
These 2 components are very difficult to asses from the studies
available.
Some researcher claim that cooperative groups underperform on
some project than person working individually  indicate a “process
loss” for those projects e.g arts n music project/activities
But musicians also know that complete competence and facility with
an instrument cannot be achieved without some playing in ensembles,
yet a case may still be made for the idea that perfection comes only
after a great deal of individual effort
 Concepts are transferred from the group to individual in the ensemble, but the
actual skills required are perfected by individual practice.
 POSSIBLE OBJECTIONS ABOUT COOPERATION

Is Competition Necessary for Motivation?

 Assumption: Cooperating with others in a group project reduces the individual’s sense of
achievement and interferes with the building of self-image as self-definition. Are those
assumptions true?
 Motivation in cooperating setting  degree to which person are commited to achieving
goals that are perceived by the group to be worthwhile and will increase their ouwn
feelings of pride and satisfaction
 Motivation from a competitive goal structure (Johnson and Johnson, 1989):
 A monopolistic focus on relative ability
 Forced social comparison on relative ability
 Uncertain subjectivw probability of success and outcomes
 Rewards restricted to only few winners
 Effort expended to win
 Contingent self-esteem
 Defensive avoidance of future competitors so as not to lose again
 POSSIBLE OBJECTIONS ABOUT COOPERATION

Is Competition Necessary for Motivation?

 In competition, winners tend to attribute their success as superior ability, become
over confident in their innate extrinsic abilities, thus motivation actually diminishes
 While losers tend to avoid competition, working, studying, and practicing.
Motivation for them also rapidly diminishes.
 Competition does not produce or maintain motivation
 In fact, external motivating factors would appear to be less sustainable both for the winners and the
losers
 Cooperation in other hand develops high internal motivation, a high level of
probability of success, and a tendency for high expenditures of effort
 Cooperative attitudes towards achievement actually correlate positively with striving
to reach goals
 POSSIBLE OBJECTIONS ABOUT COOPERATION

Should Cooperation, Competition, and Individual Effort Vary with the

Type of Task?
 Johnson’s study try to compare the effect sizes as related to the types of tasks,
roughly categorized as verbal, math, procedural and rote/decoding.
 In the comparison of cooperative and competitive structure, there does seem to be
a significance difference.
 All tasks appear to be better achieved by cooperative approaches, particularly for
procedural type tasks, the effect size more than twice the size of others.
 Meanwhile for the rote work and decoding, cooperation has a low effect size, the rote tasks are
more favorable to use individual effort.
Can Low Levels of Ability Hinder Performance on Cooperative Tasks?
What about the Potential Corruption from Low Quality Studies?
 POSSIBLE OBJECTIONS ABOUT COOPERATION

Can Low Levels of Ability Hinder Performance on Cooperative Tasks?

 Three composition of performance:
 Achievement of goals
 Learning more
 Maintaining the working group
 The studies that agree with above research question:
 Hill (1982) concludes that low and medium ability cooperators get in the way of achievement that could
be better accomplished by high level people in their own group, or even individually
 Other studies state that low ability students in a learning group do not benefit from the ideas and
knowledge of high ability students
 There also the unconfirmed assumption saying that ultimate test of learning is the ability to achieve by
individual effort
 Persons of varying abilities learn more by collaborating with persons of widely variant
abilities than by collborating with persons of the same level of ability (Frick, 1973;
Webb, 1977)
 POSSIBLE OBJECTIONS ABOUT COOPERATION

Can Low Levels of Ability Hinder Performance on Cooperative Tasks?

 Persons of varying abilities learn more by collaborating with persons of widely
variant abilities than by collborating with persons of the same level of ability (Frick,
1973; Webb, 1977)
 High ability individuals working with low and medium ability persons develop higher
levels of reasoning than they do working competitively or individually (Jonhson and
Johnson, 1981)
 Including persons of low and medium levels of ability not olny does not hurt the
group process but often facilitates the achievement of high ability individuals, and
clearly benefits the achievement of medium and low ability individuals (Johnson
and Johnsonm, 1987)
 POSSIBLE OBJECTIONS ABOUT COOPERATION

Can Low Levels of Ability Hinder Performance on Cooperative Tasks?

 Three composition of performance:
 Achievement of goals
 Learning more
 Maintaining the working group
 The studies that agree with above research question:
 Hill (1982) concludes that low and medium ability cooperators get in the way of achievement that
could be better accomplished by high level people in their own group, or even individually
 Other studies state that low ability students in a learning group do not benefit from the ideas and
knowledge of high ability students
 There also the unconfirmed assumption saying that ultimate test of learning is the ability to achieve
by individual effort