Competition Gov Az
Gretel Parriera
Competition occurs in nature, between living organisms which co-exist in the same environment. Animals compete over water supplies, food, mates, and other biological resources. Humans usually compete for food and mates, though when these needs are met deep rivalries often arise over the pursuit of wealth, power, prestige, and fame when in a static, repetitive, or unchanging environment.[2] Competition is a major tenet of market 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 of cooperation; 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 as game theory.
Competition has been studied in several fields, including psychology, sociology and anthropology. Social psychologists, for instance, study the nature of competition. They investigate the natural urge of competition and its circumstances. They also study group 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 the history and prehistory of competition in various cultures. They also investigate how competition manifested itself in various cultural settings in the past, and how competition has developed over time.
Competition between members of a species ("intraspecific") for resources such as food, water, territory, and sunlight 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 may die out unless they adapt by character dislocation, for instance. According to evolutionary theory, this competition within and between species for resources plays a significant role in natural 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 more 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]
In Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom, competitions or lotto are the equivalent of what are commonly known as sweepstakes in the United States. The correct technical name for Australian consumer competitions is a trade promotion lottery or lotto.[9]
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.
People that enjoy entering competitions are known as compers.[10][11]Many compers attend annual national conventions. In 2012 over 100 members of the online competitions community of lottos.com.au from around Australia met on the Gold Coast, Queensland to discuss competitions.[12][13]
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 through scholarships. Countries such as England and Singapore have special education programmes which cater for specialist students, prompting charges of academic 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; Japan being a prime example (see Education in Japan). This has resulted in critical re-evaluation of examinations as a whole by educationalists[citation needed]. Critics of competition as a motivating factor in education systems, such as Alfie 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".[14] Economist Richard 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."[15]
However, other studies such as the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking show that the effect of competition on students depends on each individual's level of agency. 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.[16][17]
Merriam-Webster gives as one definition of competition (relating to business) 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".[18] Adam Smith in his 1776 book The Wealth of Nations and later economists described competition in general as allocating productive resources to their most highly valued uses and encouraging efficiency.[19][need quotation to verify] Later microeconomic theory distinguished between perfect competition and imperfect competition, concluding that no system of resource allocation is more efficient than perfect 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 increased costs (and prices) in some circumstances. For example, the intense competition for the small number of top 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.[20] In addition, the strong desire to defeat rival firms with competitive prices has the strong possibility of causing price wars.[21]
Competition does not necessarily have to be between companies. For example, business writers sometimes refer to internal competition. This is competition within companies. The idea was first introduced by Alfred Sloan at General Motors in the 1920s. Sloan deliberately created areas of overlap between divisions of the company so that each division would compete with the other divisions. For example, the Chevrolet division would compete with the Pontiac division for some market 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 1931 Procter & Gamble initiated a deliberate system of internal brand-versus-brand rivalry. The company was organized[by whom?] around different brands, with each brand allocated resources, including a dedicated group of employees willing to champion the brand. Each brand 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 as intra-brand competition.
Shalev and Asbjornsen found that success (i.e. the saving resulted) of reverse auctions correlated most closely with competition. The literature widely supported the importance of competition as the primary driver of reverse auctions success.[23] Their findings appear to support that argument, as competition correlated strongly with the reverse auction success, as well as with the number of bidders.[23]
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