Collaboration

Collaboration (from Latin com- "with" + laborare "to labor", "to work") is the process of two or more people, entities or organizations working together to complete a task or achieve a goal. Collaboration is similar to cooperation. Most collaboration requires leadership, although the form of leadership can be social within a decentralized and egalitarian group. Teams that work collaboratively often access greater resources, recognition and rewards when facing competition for finite resources. Structured methods of collaboration encourage introspection of behavior and communication. Such methods aim to increase the success of teams as they engage in collaborative problem-solving. Collaboration is present in opposing goals exhibiting the notion of adversarial collaboration, though this is not a common use of the term. In its applied sense, "[a] collaboration is a purposeful relationship in which all parties strategically choose to cooperate in order to accomplish a shared outcome". Trade between nations is a form of collaboration between two societies which produce and exchange different portfolios of goods. Trade began in prehistoric times and continues because it benefits all of its participants. Prehistoric peoples bartered goods and services with each other without a modern currency. Peter Watson dates the history of long-distance commerce from circa 150,000 years ago. Trade exists because different communities have a comparative advantage in the production of tradable goods. The Roman Empire used collaboration through ruling with visible control, which lasted from 31BC until (in the east) 1453CE, across around fifty countries. The growth of trade was supported by the stable administration of the Romans. Evidence shows that the Roman Empire and Julius Caesar were influenced by the Greek writer Xenophon's The Education of Cyrus on leadership. This says that ‘social bonds, not command and control, were to be the primary mechanisms of governance’.