An Investigation Into The Effect Of Competition On Performance

Economic analysis of a monopolistically competitive industry is more complicated than that of pure competition because:

The structure of an organization is the sum of total ways in which it divides its labour into distinct tasks and then achieves coordination among them. (Mintzberg, 1979). An organization can be structured in many ways depending on their objectives. An organizational structure consists of activities such as task allocation, coordination and supervision which are directed towards the achievement of organizational aims. (www.wikipedia.org)

Competition is prevalent in various aspects of life, including sports, school, and jobs. Everyone at some point in their lifetime will have to compete against others in order to achieve a goal or earn a prize. It’s how the world has worked for a long time; it’s survival of the fittest and this minor competition between everyone is how we have continuously gotten smarter, faster, and stronger. Competition is necessary to a certain degree, but how much is too much? It’s definitely not a bad thing, and as long as there’s a healthy amount, it can be beneficial because it fosters self-improvement, and it will push people to go all out and try their absolute best.

The author also stated that competition can be introduced to students at any age to alleviate them from being academically lazy. The author also explained the pitfalls of competing. Such reasons listed were stress and anxiety, conflicts and disunity.

Gneezy and Rustichini’s study is not the only study that has proved that through introducing competition, performance will improve compared to situations or environments where it has been removed. One idea to help remove competition from the classroom people want to remove grades from classes. The thought behind it being that students can focus on learning not striving to achieve better grades. In effort to disprove this theory and show why classrooms need competition Cecil Clark formulated this study. Clark focused on two graduate school classes; they were to be taught by the same professor and were to be given the same lectures, notes, homework, tests, essays, and quizzes. He then assigned the two classes a grading rubric, in one class they could receive grades from A-D and would have to turn in work that will be graded. Then in the second class the students were put into a non-competitive situation, meaning the teacher told the students that they would all receive B grades no matter what they did. He then monitored their grades in the classes, the absences, and the homework they completed. Through this process he was able to see

Clear indicators that the Client meets criteria for OCD – 300.3 (F42.2) were also found using the DSM-5 diagnostic criteria (American Psychiatric Association, 2013). A.V. described the presence of “repetitive behaviours that she feels have driven her to perform according to rules that must be applied rigidly” and “the behaviours are aimed at preventing or reducing anxiety or distress”; “however , these behaviours were not connected in a realistic way with what they are designed to neutralize or prevent, or are clearly excessive”. The main repetitive behaviours identified in the YBOCS were related to routines undertaken at home: checking, ordering, and wiping the kitchen bench.

Convergent thinking is defined as the ability to apply conventional and logical search, recognition, and decision-making strategies to stored information in order to produce an already known answer (Cropley, 2006). Divergent thinking, by contrast, is defined as the ability to produce new approaches and original ideas by forming unexpected combinations from available information and by applying such abilities as semantic flexibility, and fluency of association, ideation, and transformation (Guilford, 1959, as cited in Cropley, 2006, p. 1). Divergent thinking brings forth answers that may never have existed before and are often novel, unusual, or surprising (Cropley, 2006).

In 1949 Alfred Winslow Jones, a sociologist investigating fundamental and technical research to forecast the stock market for Fortunemagazine, set up an investment fund with himself as general partner. The fund followed three key tenets: (1) always maintain short positions, (2) always use leverage, and (3) only charge an incentive fee of 20 percent of profits with no fixed fees. Jones called his portfolio a “hedged” fund (eventually shortened to “hedge fund”) because he had short positions to offset his long positions in the stock market. Theoretically, the overall portfolio was hedged against major market moves.

“Can anyone doubt that the result of this competition will be the survival of the fittest?” In this time and age, this is not true. Back then, during the turn of the century, we could have won a competition between the lands but now we have a high rate in obesity, older Americans (18+) are usually inactive, and we have things that do what we need to do for us. We are not as strong as we used to be one hundred to two hundred years ago.

My experience at Villanova, both as a research fellow and a student was formative of my fascination with investments, hedge funds, and mutual funds. My original interest sparked while working with Dr. Velthuis and performing literature reviews on effects of corporate activism on stock prices, and size effects on hedge fund returns. Since then, classes in Portfolio Theory and

Chapter 2 Harvard Press Book (2006). Performance management: Measure and improve the effectiveness of your employees. (Chapter 2) Motivation: The Not-So-Secret Ingredient of High Performance. Harvard Business School Publishing. Cambridge, MA. Lynn, I., Hodge, Y. & Yemen G. (2007). Teamwork turmoil. University of Virginia Darden School Foundation. Beamish, P. & Jiang, R. & (2011). The Chinese fireworks industry. Richard Ivey School of Business Foundation. Kaplan, R.S. (2010). Leading change with strategy execution system. Harvard Business School Publishing. Cambridge, MA. Karkhardt, D. & Hanson, J. (1993). Informal networks: The company behind the charts. Harvard Business School Publishing. Cambridge, MA. Katzenbach, J. & Smith, D. (1993). The discipline of team. Harvard Business Review. President and Fellows of Harvard College. Kerr, S. (1995). On the folly of rewarding A, while hoping for B. Academy of Management Executive. 9 (1), 7-14 Download on class site Kramer, R.M. (2003). The harder they fall. Harvard Business School Publishing. Cambridge, MA. Montgomery, C.A. (2005). Newell Company: Corporate Strategy. Harvard Business School Press.

The important implication of this is that investors cannot consistently outperform the market, and if they do it is purely through luck. With competition for information reaching new heights, professional managers face greater difficulties in attempting to outperform each other. If these professionals are unable to consistently beat the market, there remains little hope for the average investor.

To begin with, Chapter two covers three important aspects of the business world which are competitiveness, strategy, and also productivity. These particular aspects are very important for any company to succeed in the world of business. With that being stated, any type of firm such as a manufacturer or a service provider, they must employ these three aspects because they play an important role in growing revenues. For an organization to even be considered successful, they must have a competitive advantage which leads to a strategy that will meet the company’s goals, while having the knowledge-ability to help produce the goods and services in a cost effective manner. Also, it is known that most organizations have a single state called the Mission Statement. The mission statement basically summarizes these three aspects of a company. One question that the Mission Statement should address is, “What level of business are we in?” This mission statement is categorized as the absolute basis for the organizational goals.

Michael E. Porter, associate professor published the article titled “How Competitive Forces shape Strategy” in Harvard Business Review in 1979. This article is retitled as “The Five Competitive Forces That Shape Strategy” and published in Harvard Business Review in 2008. Michael E. Porter developed the model of Five Competitive Forces which is defined as “Competitive Strategy – Techniques for Analyzing Industries and Competitors”. It has become a main device for analyzing an organizations structure in strategic practices.

To identify an appropriate strategy for a given industry one must look into the external and internal factors influencing the company. This Schnell Air report has been conceived with a triple objective in mind: to provide the Schnell Air Board with (i) a brief and compelling synthesis of Schnell Air’s competitive market environment overview since it entered the Innsbruck – Turin route in January 1997 as compared to prior to its entry, (ii) analyse the available data to establish the extent of predatory pricing strategies being plotted by the two existing duopolies – Air Turin and Innsbruck Air and (iii) by using a Game Theoretic approach model and highlight the affect of a 4th daily service on the same route given the