Strategy and Cooperation: a View of Management from the Paradigm of Collaboration Between Firms

Abstract

This work develops the concept of cooperation and its relation with organizational strategy. Biological arguments are shown for cooperative behavior by means of the concepts of mutual support, natural derive, and structural coupling. The phenomenon of cooperation in the social and organizational environs is also discussed, as well as the contributions of the contractual stream to the discussion of cooperation between companies. Also, the problem of strategy within the organization, its relation to management and complexity as well as its reach and limitations are dealt with. Finally, the relation between strategy and cooperation is discussed, by analyzing the types of cooperation, the important aspects to choose among the various forms of cooperation, the principal criteria to select partners and the fundamental aspects to manage cooperation-based relations.