Introduction

Welcome to Group Co-opetition Blog

High Performance Collaborations MGT6209

Professor Dr. Kuo Frank Yu

Group Members:

MAK Siu ming
Student ID: 52557414
Program: MScOM

CHOI Klaus
Student ID: 52561187
Program: MScOM

BELIKOVA Anastasia
Student ID: 52386135
Program: MScOM


Why we chose Co-opetition as our group name

We, as a group, wish to cooperate with each other and learn from each other during the course and preparation for the assignment. At the same time, compete with each other and with other groups for the better grade in course assignments.

Group Logo

Description

Our logo is the composition of a triangle and a Greek alphabet. As mentioned in “Why we chose Co-opetition as our group name” we cooperate with each other’s and at the same time we compete among ourselves. The triangle means we are a group with 3 members, each of us have got our point of view and opinion.  However, at the same time we cooperate, listen and respect others. The Greek alphabet, Theta in the middle of triangle is the bridge to connect the three single identities. 

There was myth in ancient China, “ 天圓地方”, translate into English means The sky is in round shape while the ground is flat. Mencius, a very famous Chinese philosopher suggested the flat shape represent human behavior, round shape represent a series of orders to maintain human behaviors and create a harmony environment for human beings. 

The other reason we choose Theta is because it is a very common symbol in mathematics to measure angles. No matter how large or small the angle is, people use Theta as a tool of measurement.

Group Goals

• To learn the essential skills in collaborations, including negotiation, conflict resolution and cooperation, resulting in outstanding individual and team performance.

• To practise the skills during preparation of the group presentation and assignment.
• To gain a little [at least a little] extra knowledge which will later enable each of us to shine at our workplaces. 
• To learn how to work with each other, how to organize ourselves and each other in a project.

What Excites our Group most about the weekly Topics

• In week two, we have learn the skills in negotiating among diverse individuals to arrive at Win-Win outcome. The concept of “1+1=3” has expanded the pie and creates a larger cake to achieve a win-win approach.
  This concept generates a new mindset to our group and let all of us understand the skills and strategies for how to be in the circle of win-win approach.

Additional Topics Like to Learn

• The pros and cons of different genders of negotiators in different types of negotiations and in different socio-culture area.
• Handling the  dynamics of atypical group compositions - e.g. a group with two strong natural leaders, a group without a clear leader.

Myth - A widely held but often false belief or idea.
We can find many such myths in popular sayings or proverbs.

We give you one example:

"Honey catches more flies than vinegar" 

"雞脾打人牙骹軟"

Meaning:

Persuasion is better than force, or Gentleness does more than violence.

Origin [2]:

A very international saying with appearances across the whole globe across the times:
- Ancient Greece: Ancient Aesop's Fables "North Wind and the Sun"  [between 620 and 560 BCE]
- Italy: First published as a saying by G. Torriano (1666) in Select Italian Proverbs
- USA: by Benjamin Franklin (1744) in Poor Richard's Almanac

 [3]

Implication of the myth in organizational setting:

According to the myth it is only through personal approach to each individual that we can achieve commitment of our employees to their teams and the organization in general. We need to understand what the employees need, believe and are interested in. Using punishment and abusive supervision in attempts to scare the employees into high performance will be less effective.

Proof of the myth:

There are certain characteristics that lead to successful collaboration in partnership:
1. Partnership attributes of commitment, coordination, and trust
2. Communication quality and participation
3. Conflict resolution technique of joint problem solving

It is believed that honey (appreciation) is better than vinegar (criticism) in two ways:
a. The appreciation can usually provide a positive effect on communication. Appreciation can aid opening the dialogue and provide a friendly atmosphere for a discussion and effective communication, thus providing a cornerstone for success in partnership.
b. As far as problem solving and conflict resolution goes, appreciating partner's previous successful accomplishment offers a stepping stone for resolving the conflict in a friendly environment.

A word of caution: there are other factors, besides honey [appreciation] that are required for a successful cooperation. While honey may catch more flies than vinegar, it is  still only one part of the recipe to success. Environmental factors, personality of the different players and partnership attributes of commitment, coordination and trust are other factors need to consider.


Our opinion on the myth:
Originally and naturally we are inclined to support the belief represented by the myth. It seems intuitive that being mean to someone will not get you very far.

but

Sometimes it is better to apply force when dealing with others.

1. In the 60s American researcher McGregor came up with a theory that all employees can be divided into two types. Some people are inherently lazy and negative about the work that they do (Type X), whereas others are naturally helpful, willing to cooperate and promote their organisation (Type Y). According to McGregor, type X employees can be motivated to work only with 'stick', not the carrot, i.e. by constant control and monitoring, by giving out punishments for non-compliance with the rules. The theory also encourages managers to approach such employees with mistrust and expect that the workers will avoid responsibility and work whenever possible.

 Our question to you - what is the best way to motivate a lazy person? Is it by showing support and being understanding of his situation or structuring the work environment as strictly as possible and punishing for unwanted behaviour?

2. We can think of many real life situations - both on micro and macro level - where use of force and power seems to be more appropriate than softness. A 'soft' boss can be viewed as a weak boss. Employees can exploit their supervisor's willingness to be mindful of their needs and interests. In a team collaboration of equal-status people there will always be someone who is not willing to work and who willtry to free-ride on the effort of others. In a joint venture between the two business partners one company can violate the terms of agreement in order to gain the upper hand. The offended party is likely, quite rightly, to retaliate with counter-attack. If your partner steals your technology, it is understandable that your response will be to take the offender to court, where you are likely  not only to ask for your money back, but also demand some additional compensation for breaching the contract. Let's look even bigger - when it emerged that Iran is engaged in nuclear research for potentially hostile purposes, the response of the world was not 'honey', it was the vinegar, with the sanctions ranging from financial sanctions and trade embargo to travel bans (see the reference for the full list of sanctions per country [4]).

Our question to you - do you think that in the outlined examples force is justified? Is there a better solution? And is it realistic to be asking for a different response?

3. There are supportive evidence that both reward (honey) and punishment (vinegar) can be positively associated with job performance [5]. Indeed, punishment does show positive relationship with job performance. On the other hand, reward behavior is not necessary associated with increased in productivity. Reward behavior, when contingent, is positive associated with job performance. However, when non-contingent, may even bring negative effects to motivation and drive.

Can you think of other factors that would modify the effect of reward and punishment ?

Echo to comments:

It is great to hear so many constructive comments from the audience. Many of us leave valuable comments about the ways to motivate people. Besides, different views about the uses of "vinegar" and "honey" are also discussed

From the comments we can conclude that there is no uniform rule and that whether praise or punishment is more effective depends on a particularities of the situation. What seems to be the key is, as Bernie helped to point out, the congruence between the chosen motivation style and the internal and external factors. What we would like to do then is to create some practical guidelines assisting people in their choice of appropriate motivation method. Aggregating classmates’ ideas together, here is a list of factors that seems to be relevant in selecting motivation style:

1.    Subordinates characteristics – e.g. personality (Peggy, ChiKin Matthew)

Leadership theories such as Contingency or Leader-Member Exchange remind us that a relationship between leader and subordinate is shaped through an interaction of the two personalities, minds and goals. Leaders who are mindful of their subordinates’ needs and who can find a correct approach to each will achieve most optimal results.

2.    Supervisor characteristics – e.g. skill, gender [Amor, ChiKin]

Here we would like to note an interesting interplay of the factors. Gender has been shown by our classmates to influence the choice of motivation style. At the same time the magnitude and direction of influence is influenced by culture, of which we will speak later. As Hofstede taught us in some countries the roles of men and women are distinctively different, whereas in others gender egalitarianism is a norm. The implication? One factor should not be considered without another.

3.    Working environment and structure of the company (Khalid)

Although structure of the company has been identified as a separate factor, we would like to point out that it seems that it matters in motivation style choice only insofar as it determines the appropriate norms. For instance, in flat organizational structures little difference exists between supervisor and subordinate status and position. Therefore, it will be deemed highly inappropriate to use vinegar in a company where everyone is assumed to be equal. More hierarchical organizations, on the other hand, imply a certain degree of superiority of more senior employees. Thus vinegar can be a tool for management to keep the distance between them and subordinates.

Working environment does not need to be limited to the norms and organizational culture alone. It can also refer to more tangible physical elements of the environment. Consider high-risk operations, such as work at oilrigs where following rules and orders is paramount to workers’ safety. In such environments use of vinegar is just more appropriate, but almost mandatory. 

4.    Specific situation (Khalid, Oanh)

Tying several themes again, we can see how unintended consequences of the leadership style contribute to the choice. For instance, vinegar might be able to prompt faster employee action, but honey creates friendly atmosphere, which can be beneficial for future collaborations [Cathi]. Therefore, motivation choice should be in part determined not only by which action the supervisor is trying to induce, but also what kind of working environment he is hoping for to maintain.

5.    Cultural factors (Bernie, Matthew)

In response to Bernie’s story on how to motivate T- it is a common scenario not only in your company but also other firms, both in Hong Kong and globally. We believe that the problem is not limited to frontline but also applies to different management levels. Your real case scenario actually reflects that the power distance and the authority are other important factors to determine the use of "Vinegar" or "Honey", so it is a perfect illustration of the cultural factor. Additionally, attitude of the employee to different supervisors also partly contributes the choice of supervision method.

There is one more factor that we would like to add:

6.    Company strategy

We need to remember that the ultimate aim of any manager is to contribute to the goals of the organization. Therefore, behaviour of management should also correspond to the organizational strategy. We will illustrate our point with an example. Think of a company that operates in a competitive growing market where top-quality sales staff is required to consistently keep landing large contracts. Competitive aggressive sale strategy can, arguably, be maintained best by employing aggressive sales personnel. It may be, therefore, that aggressive motivation [vinegar] is more appropriate in this situation simply because this motivation style weeds out weaker employees and keeps the remaining sharp. 

We position supervisor’s preference on top of the hierarchy, since there is always a leadership style that feels the most natural to each person. Our personalities as adults are relative stable, therefore in a situation where a subordinate needs to be motivated supervisor will always feel experience an almost reflexive response. Whether or not supervisor acts on it depend on his skill, as Amor implied, to consider the situation. Analysis should start by considering organizational goals. As mentioned above, we are talking about a professional setting; therefore the benefit of the company should be placed above any other interests. Then comes the analysis of who the supervisor is dealing with, following a mindful deliberation on what is suitable in a given organization and in a given situation. Finally, cultural preferences act as the final and, we argue, least important filter. From our experience, including the experience in this class, personal and situational factors transcend cultural factors, in that cultural factors may help understand the behaviour of others but should not guide it. Note that in the diagram we are not analyzing the sequence of analysis as it takes place in supervisor’s head. Rather we are suggesting relative importance of factors determining leadership style. It will be interesting to perform empirical testing of our hypothesis. To our knowledge, no existing research covers relative importance of factors in choosing a leadership style. This can be a fruitful topic of further academic work, which can take form of a survey, asking supervisors to rank the above factors in order of importance. We hope that our thoughts may indeed act as an inspiration to someone to do just that. 

Our classmates really broadened the analysis to include not only causal but also moderating and mediating factors of honey/vinegar choice. While we were mostly concerned with which factors determine [or should determine] choice of motivation style, we can see that in reality there might be additional variables moderating this relationship. For instance, spoke of how supervisor’s gender influences expectations of the subordinates. The diagram below suggests the role of expectation in this situation:

First of all there is a direct influence of gender on leadership style in that it might be that women are more predisposed to choose honey, since they value harmony in relationships more than men and since women tend to be less aggressive. But additionally, as pointed out by ChiKin, society expects women to be softer and men to be tougher. Picking up on the societal norms and wishing to comply with them, supervisor will adjust behaviour accordingly. A male supervisor trying to adopt honey approach at work may be treated with suspicion, to say the least. Thus he is not likely to try honey, even if this is his naturally preferred style.

There is also one comment we would like to address separately as it points out to our oversight, from which our group can lead a very important lesson.  Jenny raised a very important issue – when presenting to an audience the communication style should not only reflect the personality of the presenters, but also [and perhaps more importantly] on the requirements of the audience members. We focused out attention on which blog style will represent us best and in doing so we committed a huge mistake of paying less attention to the audience needs. Indeed visitors may find it difficult to grasp the main theme when the load of graphics is so heavy. We are glad to receive your comment since it reminds us to be mindful of whom we are communicating with. No matter how great the content of the message is [in general, we do not mean the greatness of our blog], if it is delivered with inappropriate to the audience and situation style – it is virtually worthless. This brings us back to the conclusion of our main theme – when communicating with others be mindful of who you are communicating with, what their needs are and what your goals are.

Ultimately, here is how we would like to frame our conclusion, adjusting our original thoughts for the comments of our classmates. Management should be mindful that it is not operating in a vacuum. Work situations are characterized by a complex interaction of factors. ‘Best result’ is situation-specific and can be obtained by ensuring congruence of management style and situation.

_________________________________________

References:

[1] Mohr J. & Spekman R. (1994). Characteristics of Partnership Success: Partnership Attributes, Communication Behavior and Conflict Resolution Techniques. Strategic Management Journal, 15, 135-152.

[2] Gregory Y. Titelman (1996). Random House Dictionary of Popular Proverbs and Sayings. Random House, New York.

[3] Illustrated by Milo Winter in a 1919 Aesop anthology [http://www.gutenberg.org/]

[4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanctions_against_Iran

[5] Podsakoff P.M. & Todor W.D. (1985). Relationships between leader reward and punishment behavior and group processes and productivity.  Journal of Management. 11(1), 55-73