Competition is arivalry where two or more parties strive for a commongoal which cannot be shared: where one's gain is the other's loss (an example of which is azero-sum game).[1] Competition can arise between entities such as organisms, individuals, economic and social groups, etc. The rivalry can be over attainment of any exclusive goal, includingrecognition.
Competition occurs in nature, between living organisms which co-exist in the sameenvironment. Animals compete over water supplies, food, mates, and otherbiological resources.Humans usuallycompete for food and mates, though when these needs are met deep rivalries often arise over the pursuit ofwealth, power, prestige, andfame when in a static, repetitive, or unchanging environment.[2] Competition is a major tenet ofmarket economies and business, often associated with business competition as companies are in competition with at least one other firm over the same group of customers. Competition inside a company is usually stimulated with the larger purpose of meeting and reaching higher quality of services or improved products that the company may produce or develop.
Competition is often considered to be the opposite ofcooperation; however, in the real world, mixtures of cooperation and competition are the norm.[3] In economies, as the philosopher R. G. Collingwood argued "the presence of these two opposites together is essential to an economic system. The parties to an economic action co-operate in competing, like two chess players".[4] Optimal strategies to achieve goals are studied in the branch of mathematics known asgame theory.
Competition has been studied in several fields, includingpsychology,sociology andanthropology. Socialpsychologists, for instance, study the nature of competition. They investigate the natural urge of competition and its circumstances. They also studygroup dynamics, to detect how competition emerges and what its effects are.Sociologists, meanwhile, study the effects of competition on society as a whole. Additionally,anthropologists study thehistory and prehistory of competition in various cultures. They also investigate how competition manifested itself in variouscultural settings in the past, and how competition has developed over time.
Competition within, between, and among species is one of the most important forces in biology, especially in the field ofecology.[5]
Competition between members of a species ("intraspecific") for resources such asfood,water,territory, andsunlight may result in an increase in the frequency of a variant of the species best suited for survival and reproduction until its fixation within a population. However, competition among resources also has a strong tendency for diversification between members of the same species, resulting in coexistence of competitive and non-competitive strategies or cycles between low and high competitiveness. Third parties within a species often favour highly competitive strategies leading to species extinction when environmental conditions are harsh (evolutionary suicide).[6]
Competition is also present between species ("interspecific"). When resources are limited, several species may depend on these resources. Thus, each of the species competes with the others to gain access to the resources. As a result, species less suited to compete for the resources maydie out unless theyadapt by character dislocation, for instance. According toevolutionary theory, this competition within and between species for resources plays a significant role innatural selection. At shorter time scales, competition is also one of the most important factors controlling diversity in ecological communities, but at larger scales expansion and contraction of ecological space is a much larger factor than competition.[7] This is illustrated by living plant communities where asymmetric competition and competitive dominance frequently occur.[5] Multiple examples of symmetric and asymmetric competition also exist for animals.[8]
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In Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom, competitions or lotto are the equivalent of what are commonly known assweepstakes in the United States. The correct technical name for Australian consumer competitions is a trade promotion lottery or lotto.[9]
Competition or trade promotion lottery entrants enter to win a prize or prizes, hence many entrants are all in competition, or competing for a limited number of prizes.
A trade promotion lottery or competition is a free entry lottery run to promote goods or services supplied by a business. An example is where you purchase goods or services and then given the chance to enter into the lottery and possibly win a prize. A trade promotion lottery can be called a lotto, competition, contest, sweepstake, or giveaway.
Such competitions can be games of luck (randomly drawn) or skill (judged on an entry question or submission), or possibly a combination of both.
People that enjoy entering competitions are known as compers.[10][11]
Manyphilosophers andpsychologists have identified a trait in most living organisms which can drive the particular organism to compete. This trait, called competitiveness, is viewed as having a highadaptive value, which coexists along with the urge for survival.[2] Competitiveness, or the inclination to compete, though, has become synonymous with aggressiveness and ambition in theEnglish language. More advancedcivilizations integrate aggressiveness and competitiveness into theirinteractions, as a way to distribute resources and adapt. Many plants compete with neighboring ones for sunlight.
The term also applies toeconometrics. Here, it is a comparative measure of the ability and performance of a firm or sub-sector to sell and produce/supply goods and/or services in a given market. The two academic bodies of thought on the assessment of competitiveness are theStructure Conduct Performance Paradigm and the more contemporaryNew Empirical Industrial Organisation model. Predicting changes in the competitiveness of business sectors is becoming an integral and explicit step in public policymaking. Within capitalist economic systems, the drive of enterprises is to maintain and improve their own competitiveness.
One-upmanship, also called "one-upsmanship",[12] is the art or practice of successively outdoing acompetitor. The term was first used in the title of a book byStephen Potter, published in 1952[13] as a follow-up toThe Theory and Practice ofGamesmanship (or the Art of Winning Games without Actually Cheating) (1947). OtherLifemanship titles in his series oftongue-in-cheekself-help books, as well as film and television derivatives, teach various ploys to achieve this. This comicsatire ofself-help style guides manipulates traditional British conventions for the gamester. The principle being all life being a game, who understands thatif you're not one-up, you're one-down. Potter's unprincipled principles apply to almost any possession, experience or situation, deriving maximum undeserved rewards and discomfitting the opposition. The 1960 filmSchool for Scoundrels and its2006 remake were satiric portrayals of how to use Potter's ideas.[citation needed]
In that context, the term refers to a satiric course in thegambits required for the systematic and conscious practice of "creative intimidation", making one's associates feel inferior and thereby gaining the status of being "one-up" on them. Viewed seriously, it is a phenomenon ofgroup dynamics that can have significant effects in themanagement field: for instance, manifesting inoffice politics.[14]
Competition is a major factor in education. On a global scale, national education systems, intending to bring out the best in the next generation, encourage competitiveness among students throughscholarships. Countries such as England and Singapore havespecial education programmes which cater for specialist students, prompting charges ofacademic elitism. Upon receipt of their academic results, students tend to compare their grades to see who is better. In severe cases, the pressure to perform in some countries is so high that it can result in stigmatization of intellectually deficient students, or even suicide as a consequence of failing the exams. Critics of competition as a motivating factor in education systems, such asAlfie Kohn, assert that competition actually has a net negative influence on the achievement levels of students, and that it "turns all of us into losers".[15] EconomistRichard Layard has commented on the harmful effects, stating "people feel that they are under a great deal of pressure. They feel that their main objective in life is to do better than other people. That is certainly what young people are being taught in school every day. And it's not a good basis for a society."[16]
However, other studies such as theTorrance Tests of Creative Thinking show that the effect of competition on students depends on each individual's level ofagency. Students with a high level of agency thrive on competition, are self-motivated, and are willing to risk failure. Compared to their counterparts who are low in agency, these students are more likely to be flexible, adaptable and creative as adults.[17][18]
Merriam-Webster gives as one definition of competition (relating tobusiness) as "[...] rivalry: such as [...] the effort of two or more parties acting independently to secure the business of a third party by offering the most favorable terms".[19]Adam Smith in his 1776 bookThe Wealth of Nations and later economists described competition in general as allocating productiveresources to their most highly valued uses and encouragingefficiency.[20][need quotation to verify] Latermicroeconomic theory distinguished betweenperfect competition andimperfect competition, concluding that no system of resource allocation is more efficient thanperfect competition.[citation needed] Competition, according to the theory, causes commercial firms to develop new products, services and technologies, which would give consumers greater selection and better products. The greater selection typically causes lower prices for the products, compared to what the price would be if there was no competition (monopoly) or little competition (oligopoly).[citation needed]
However, competition may also lead to wasted (duplicated) effort and to increasedcosts (and prices) in some circumstances. For example, the intense competition for the small number oftop jobs in music and movie-acting leads many aspiring musicians and actors to make substantial investments in training which are not recouped, because only a fraction become successful. Critics[which?] have also argued that competition can be destabilizing, particularly competition between certain financial institutions.
Experts have also questioned the constructiveness of competition in profitability. It has been argued that competition-oriented objectives are counterproductive to raising revenues and profitability because they limit the options of strategies for firms as well as their ability to offer innovative responses to changes in the market.[21] In addition, the strong desire to defeat rival firms with competitive prices has the strong possibility of causingprice wars.[22]
Another distinction appearing in economics is that between competition as an end-state – as in the case of both perfect and imperfect competition – and competition as aprocess. It is a process of rivalry between firms (or consumers) intensifying selective pressures for improvements. One can restate this as a process of discovery.[23]
Three levels of end-state economic competition have been classified:[by whom?]
In addition, companies compete forfinancing on the capital markets (equity or debt) in order to generate the necessary cash for their operations.Investor typically consider alternative investment opportunities given their risk profile, and not only look at companies just competing on product (direct competitors). Enlarging the investment universe to includeindirect competitors leads to a broader peer universe of comparable, indirectly competing companies.
Competition does not necessarily have to be between companies. For example,business writers sometimes refer tointernal competition. This is competition within companies. The idea was first introduced byAlfred Sloan atGeneral Motors in the 1920s. Sloan deliberately created areas of overlap betweendivisions of the company so that each division would compete with the other divisions. For example, theChevrolet division would compete with thePontiac division for somemarket segments. The competing brands by the same company allowed parts to be designed by one division and shared by several divisions, for example parts designed by Chevrolet would also be used by Pontiac. In 1931Procter & Gamble initiated a deliberate system of internal brand-versus-brand rivalry. The company was organized[by whom?] around differentbrands, with each brand allocated resources, including a dedicated group of employees willing to champion the brand. Eachbrand manager was given responsibility for the success or failure of the brand, and compensated accordingly.
Most businesses also encourage competition between individual employees. An example of this is a contest between sales representatives. The sales representative with the highest sales (or the best improvement in sales) over a period of time would gain benefits from the employer. This is also known asintra-brand competition.
Shalev and Asbjornsen found that success (i.e. the saving resulted) ofreverse auctions correlated most closely with competition. The literature widely supported the importance of competition as the primary driver of reverse auctions success.[24] Their findings appear to support that argument, as competition correlated strongly with the reverse auction success, as well as with the number of bidders.[24]
Business and economic competition in mostcountries is often[quantify] limited or restricted. Competition often is subject to legal restrictions. For example, competition may be legally prohibited, as in the cases of agovernment monopoly or of agovernment-granted monopoly. Governments may institutetariffs,subsidies or otherprotectionist measures in order to prevent or reduce competition. Depending on the respective economic policy, pure competition is to a greater or lesser extent regulated bycompetition policy andcompetition law. Another component of these activities is thediscovery process, with instances of highergovernment regulations typically leading to less competitive businesses being launched.[25]
Nicholas Gruen has referred toThe Competition Delusion,[26] in which competition is taken to be unambiguously good, even where that competition leaks into the rules of the game. He claims this drives financialisation (the approximate doubling of proportion of economic resources dedicated to finance and to 'rule making and administering' professions such as law, accountancy and auditing.
Competition between countries is quite subtle to detect, but is quite evident in theworld economy.[citation needed] Countries compete to provide the best possiblebusiness environment formultinational corporations. Such competition is evident by the policies undertaken by these countries to educate the future workforce. For example, East Asian economies such as Singapore, Japan and South Korea tend to compete by allocating a large portion of the budget to the education sector, including by implementing programmes such asgifted education.
Competitionlaw, known in theUnited States as antitrust law, has three main functions:
In all three cases, competition law aims to protect thewelfare of consumers by ensuring that each business must compete for its share of themarket economy.
In recent decades,[when?] competition law has also been sold[by whom?] as good medicine to provide betterpublic services, traditionally funded bytax-payers and administered bydemocratically accountable[clarification needed]governments. Hence competition law is closely connected with the law on deregulation of access to markets, providing state aids and subsidies, theprivatisation of state-owned assets and the use of independent sector regulators, such as the United Kingdom telecommunications watchdogOfcom. Behind the practice lies the theory, which over the last fifty years[when?] has been dominated byneo-classical economics. Markets are seen as the most efficient method of allocating resources, although sometimesthey fail, and regulation becomes necessary to protect the ideal market model. Behind the theory lies the history, reaching back further than theRoman Empire. The business practices of market traders,guilds and governments have always been subject to scrutiny and sometimes to severe sanctions. Since the twentieth century, competition law has become global.[citation needed] The two largest, most organised and influential systems of competition regulation areUnited States antitrust law andEuropean Community competition law. The respective national/international authorities, theU.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and theFederal Trade Commission (FTC) in the United States and theEuropean Commission's Competition Directorate General (DGCOMP) have formed international support- and enforcement-networks. Competition law is growing in importance every day,[citation needed] which warrants for its careful study.
Game theory is "the study ofmathematical models of conflict and cooperation between intelligent rational decision-makers."[30] Game theory is mainly used ineconomics,political science, andpsychology, as well aslogic,computer science,biology andpoker.[31] Originally, it mainly addressedzero-sum games, in which one person's gains result in losses for the other participants.
Game theory is a major method used inmathematical economics and business formodeling competing behaviors of interactingagents.[32] Applications include a wide array of economic phenomena and approaches, such asauctions,bargaining,mergers & acquisitions pricing,[33]fair division,duopolies,oligopolies,social network formation,agent-based computational economics,[34]general equilibrium,mechanism design,[35] andvoting systems;[36] and across such broad areas asexperimental economics,[37]behavioral economics,[38]information economics,[39]industrial organization,[40] andpolitical economy.[41][42]
This research usually focuses on particular sets of strategies known as"solution concepts" or "equilibria". A common assumption is that players act rationally. In non-cooperative games, the most famous of these is theNash equilibrium. A set of strategies is a Nash equilibrium if each represents a best response to the other strategies. If all the players are playing the strategies in a Nash equilibrium, they have no unilateral incentive to deviate, since their strategy is the best they can do given what others are doing.[43][44]
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Literary competitions, such as contests sponsored byliterary journals, publishing houses and theaters, have increasingly become a means for aspiring writers to gain recognition. Awards for fiction include those sponsored by theMissouri Review,Boston Review,Indiana Review,North American Review andSouthwest Review. TheAlbee Award, sponsored by the Yale Drama Series, is among the most prestigious playwriting awards.
Margaret Heffernan's study,A Bigger Prize,[45]examines the perils and disadvantages of competition in (for example) biology, families, sport, education, commerce and the Soviet Union.[46]
Karl Marx insisted that "the capitalist system fosters competition and egoism in all its members and thoroughly undermines all genuine forms of community".[47]It promotes a "climate of competitive egoism and individualism", with competition for jobs and competition between employees; Marx said competition between workers exceeds that demonstrated by company owners.[48] He also points out that competition separates individuals from one another and while concentration of workers and development of better communication alleviate this, they are not a decision.[48]
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Sigmund Freud explained competition as a primal dilemma in which all infants find themselves. The infant competes with other family members for the attention and affection of the parent of the opposite sex or the primary caregiving parent. During this time, a boy develops a deep fear that the father (the son's prime rival) will punish him for these feelings of desire for the mother, by castrating him. Girls develop penis envy towards all males. The girl's envy is rooted in the biologic fact that, without a penis, she cannot sexually possess mother, as the infantile id demands, resultantly, the girl redirects her desire for sexual union upon father in competitive rivalry with her mother. This constellation of feelings is known asOedipus Complex (after the Greek Mythology figure who accidentally killed his father and married his mother). This is associated with thephallic stage of childhood development where intense primal emotions of competitive rivalry with (usually) the parent of the same sex are rampant and create a crisis that must be negotiated successfully for healthy psychological development to proceed. Unresolved Oedipus complex competitiveness issues can lead to lifelong neuroses manifesting in various ways related to an overdetermined relationship to competition.
Gandhi speaks of egoistic competition.[49] For him, such qualities glorified and/or left unbridled, can lead to violence, conflict, discord and destructiveness. For Gandhi, competition comes from the ego, and therefore society must be based on mutual love, cooperation and sacrifice for the well-being of humanity.[49] In the society desired by Gandhi, each individual will cooperate and serve for the welfare of others and people will share each other's joys, sorrows and achievements as a norm of a social life. For him, in a non-violent society, competition does not have a place and this should become realized with more people making the personal choice to have fewer tendencies toward egoism and selfishness.[49]
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Competition is also found inpolitics. Indemocracies, afree and fair election is anelectoral competition for an elected office. In other words, two or more candidates strive and compete against one another to attain a position of power. The winner gains the seat of the elected office for a predefined period of time, towards the end of which another election is usually held to determine the next holder of the office.
In addition, there is inevitable competition inside a government. Because several offices are appointed, potential candidates compete against the others in order to gain the particular office. Departments may also compete for a limited amount of resources, such as forfunding. Finally, where there areparty systems, elected leaders of different parties will ultimately compete against the other parties forlaws,funding andpower.
Finally, competition also exists betweengovernments. Eachcountry ornationality struggles for world dominance, power, ormilitary strength. For example, theUnited States competed against theSoviet Union in theCold War for world power, and the two also struggled over the different types of government (in these casesrepresentative democracy andcommunism). The result of this type of competition often leads to worldwide tensions, and may sometimes erupt intowarfare.
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While somesports andgames (such asfishing orhiking) have been viewed as primarily recreational, most sports are considered competitive. The majority involve competition between two or more persons (sometimes usinghorses orcars). For example, in a game ofbasketball, two teams compete against one another to determine who can score the most points. When there is no set reward for the winning team, many players gain a sense ofpride. In addition, extrinsic rewards may also be given. Athletes, besides competing against other humans, also compete againstnature in sports such aswhitewater kayaking ormountaineering, where the goal is to reach a destination, with only natural barriers impeding the process. A regularly scheduled (for instance annual) competition meant to determine the "best" competitor of that cycle is called achampionship.
Competitive sports are governed by codified rules agreed upon by the participants. Violating these rules is considered to beunfair competition. Thus, sports provide artificial (not natural) competition; for example, competing for control of a ball, or defending territory on a playing field is not an innate biological factor in humans. Athletes in sports such asgymnastics and competitivediving compete against each other in order to come closest to a conceptual ideal of a perfect performance, which incorporates measurable criteria and standards which are translated into numerical ratings and scores by appointed judges.
Sports competition is generally broken down into three categories:individual sports, such asarchery;dual sports, such asdoubles tennis, andteam sports competition, such ascricket orfootball. While most sports competitions are recreation, there exist severalmajor andminor professional sports leagues throughout the world. TheOlympic Games, held every four years, is usually regarded as the international pinnacle of sports competition.
Competition is also found intrade. For nations, as well as firms it is important to understand trade dynamics in order to market their goods and services effectively in international markets.Balance of trade can be considered a crude, but widely used proxy for international competitiveness across levels:country,industry or evenfirm. "We share a common belief that innovation comes from the edges," said Luisa Delgado, an SAP HR director, who noted the company valued the ability of many autistic people to "think differently and spark innovation." SAP’s Bangalore office saw its productivity increase after deploying autistic hires. The company is working closely with a Danish not-for-profit specializing in IT job placements for individuals with autism spectrum disorders."[50] Research data hints that exporting firms have a higher survival rate and achieve greater employment growth compared with non-exporters.
Using a simple concept to measure heights that firms can climb may help improve execution of strategies. International competitiveness can be measured on several criteria but few are as flexible and versatile to be applied across levels as Trade Competitiveness Index (TCI)[51]
The tendency toward extreme, unhealthy competition has been termedhypercompetitiveness. This concept originated inKaren Horney's theories onneurosis; specifically, the highly aggressive personality type which is characterized as "moving against people". In her view, some people have a need to compete and win at all costs as a means of maintaining theirself-worth. These individuals are likely to turn any activity into a competition, and they will feel threatened if they find themselves losing. Researchers have found that men and women who score high on the trait of hypercompetitiveness are morenarcissistic and less psychologically healthy than those who score low on the trait.[52] Hypercompetitive individuals generally believe that winning is the only thing that matters.[53]
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Competition can have both beneficial and detrimental effects. Many evolutionary biologists view inter-species and intra-species competition as the driving force ofadaptation, and ultimately ofevolution. However, some biologists disagree, citing competition as a driving force only on a small scale, and citing the larger scale drivers of evolution to be abiotic factors (termed 'Room to Roam').[7]Richard Dawkins prefers to think of evolution in terms of competition between single genes, which have the welfare of the organism 'in mind' only insofar as that welfare furthers their own selfish drives for replication (termed the 'selfish gene').
Somesocial Darwinists claim that competition also serves as a mechanism for determining the best-suited group; politically, economically and ecologically. Positively, competition may serve as a form ofrecreation or a challenge provided that it is non-hostile. On the negative side, competition can cause injury and loss to the organisms involved, and drain valuable resources and energy. In the human species competition can be expensive on many levels, not only in lives lost to war, physical injuries, and damaged psychological well-beings, but also in the health effects from everyday civilian life caused by work stress, long work hours, abusive working relationships, and poor working conditions, that detract from the enjoyment of life, even as such competition results in financial gain for the owners.
{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)A 1996 review of the evidence, summarized in this paper, found that competitor-oriented objectives reduced profitability. We describe new evidence from 12 studies, one of which is introduced in this paper. The new evidence supports the conclusion that competitor-oriented objectives are harmful, especially when managers receive information about competitors' market shares.
Margaret Heffernan's brave study shows how the competitive instinct can be bad for us in all walks of life, from sport to finance
This problem is greatly exacerbated by Marx's insistence that the capitalist system fosters competition and egoism in all its members and thoroughly undermines all genuine forms of community.
Media related toCompetitions at Wikimedia Commons| Similar personality concepts | |
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