FOSTERING A COOPERATIVE SPIRIT IN BUSINESS PRACTICES

This study provides an overview of the impact of actions when cooperativeness takes place within the business environment. Although Social Exchange Theory (SET) has established the most influential foundations in the behaviour literature, scepticism still arises when partnership and strategic cooperation are heralded as key components for success in the current business landscape. Nonetheless, there is increasing interest in integrating cooperative values to develop sound business plans and to boost success in a more efficient framework. In short, gains from the sum of the parts outweigh the investment in each part, thus leading to economic benefit. The goal of this study is to highlight the benefits of building a cooperative spirit in the university community and to link it to business-related degree curricula. We collect data using questionnaires completed by students from different disciplines, in a Business Studies context, following their experience of applying cooperative strategies during the course. We propose extrapolating our results to a broader context, as today’s students will soon be working in the professional business environment. They will face real situations in which their potential success as part of the team will be greater than what each individual would achieve if driven by strictly selfish objectives. Indeed, our results demonstrate an overall improvement in the performance of participants who agreed to take part in cooperative networks embedded into business practices.