The Effect of Perceived Uncertainty on Competitive Behavior

How do people behave in the face of uncertainty? Some studies suggest that even when they are unaware of how others will behave, people default to cooperative behavior; however, other research suggests that uncertainty leads to more competitive behavior. Little research has examined how individual differences moderate such behavioral decisions. This study proposes that a stable (dispositional) sense of justice may, ironically, lead to more competitive behavior. Specifically, people who score highly in belief in a just world, system justification, and religiosity, and low in ambiguity tolerance may be more inclined to compete rather than cooperate because they believe people who experience positive outcomes deserve those outcomes regardless of the means taken to achieve them. Across two studies, participants (N = 288) engaged in a prisoner’s dilemma game — a task where they must choose to compete or cooperate — and completed the aforementioned individual difference measures. Results show that people tended to cooperate, but those high in system justification and belief in a just world were more likely to compete. In other words, people with a strong sense of cosmic justice were likely to exhibit competitive behavior under uncertain conditions. KEYWORDS: Ambiguity Tolerance; Competition; Cooperation; Just World Beliefs; Prisoner’s Dilemma; Prosocial Behavior; Religiosity; System Justification; Uncertainty

Assesing the Merger of Online Platform Companies: Does it Lead to Monopoly or just Business Expansion? (Analysis of The Merged Company of GoTo)

Two large digital platform companies, Gojek and Tokopedia, officially merged to form a holding company called the GoTo Group that is considered to have anti-competitive behavior and potentially data monopoly. This article aimed to analyze the adequate response to potential violations of the Prohibition of Monopolistic Practices and Unfair Business Competition Regulation and legal issues related to consumer data monopoly issues. This article uses normative legal research with the conceptual research and statute approach. The result shows that it is necessary to define “relevant markets” and the “substituted products” to determine the existence of unfair business competition in the Gojek-Tokopedia merger. It requires analyzing the consumer behavior in other marketplaces other than Tokopedia; when consumers do not "run" to Gojek, it means they are not in the same market. To prevent privacy protection failures in post-merger data integration, companies need to assess data sharing that may be carried out as part of a risk assessment. Regarding the rights of data subjects, The company needs to provide notification to the data subject regarding the Merger and Acquisition (M & A) given the data subject's right to refuse and guarantee that the M & A process will not violate the right to privacy of the customer's dataKeywords: Competition Law; Digital Platform; Merger Menilai Penggabungan Perusahaan Platform Online: Apakah Mengakibatkan Monopoli atau Hanya Ekspansi Bisnis? (Analisis Penggabungan GoTo)AbstrakDua perusahaan platform digital besar, Gojek dan Tokopedia, resmi bergabung membentuk holding company bernama GoTo Group yang dinilai memiliki perilaku anti persaingan dan berpotensi monopoli data. Artikel ini bertujuan untuk menganalisis respon yang memadai terhadap potensi pelanggaran Peraturan Larangan Praktik Monopoli dan Persaingan Usaha Tidak Sehat serta masalah hukum terkait masalah monopoli data konsumen. Artikel ini menggunakan penelitian hukum normatif dengan pendekatan penelitian konseptual dan undang-undang. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan perlunya mendefinisikan “pasar relevan” dan “produk substitusi” untuk mengetahui adanya persaingan usaha tidak sehat dalam merger Gojek-Tokopedia. Hal ini membutuhkan analisis perilaku konsumen di pasar lain selain Tokopedia; ketika konsumen tidak “lari” ke Gojek, berarti mereka tidak berada di pasar yang sama. Untuk mencegah kegagalan perlindungan privasi dalam integrasi data pasca-merger, perusahaan perlu menilai pembagian data yang mungkin dilakukan sebagai bagian dari penilaian risiko. Mengenai hak subjek data, Perusahaan perlu memberikan pemberitahuan kepada subjek data mengenai Merger dan Akuisisi (M&A) mengingat hak subjek data untuk menolak dan menjamin bahwa proses M&A tidak akan melanggar hak privasi data pelangganKata Kunci: Hukum Persaingan Usaha; Platform Digital; PenggabunganОценка слияний компаний онлайн-платформ: приведет ли это к монополии или просто к расширению бизнеса? (Анализ слияний GoTo (Gojek и Tokopedia) АннотацияДве крупные компании, занимающиеся цифровыми платформами, Gojek и Tokopedia, официально объединили свои усилия, чтобы сформировать холдинговую компанию GoTo Group, которая, как считается, ведет антиконкурентную политику и может монополизировать данные. Данная статья направлена на анализ адекватного реагирования на возможные нарушения Положения о запрещении монополистической практики и недобросовестной конкуренции, а также на правовые вопросы, связанные с проблемой монополии на данные потребителей. В данной статье используется нормативно-правовое исследование с концептуальным и правовым исследовательским подходом. Результаты исследования указывают на необходимость определить «соответствующие рынки» и «продукты-заменители», чтобы определить наличие недобросовестной деловой конкуренции в слиянии Gojek-Tokopedia. Это требует анализа поведения потребителей на рынках, отличных от Tokopedia; когда потребители не «бегут» в Gojek, это означает, что они не находятся на одинаковом рынке. Чтобы предотвратить сбои в защите конфиденциальности при интеграции данных после слияния, компаниям необходимо оценить возможное совместное использование данных в рамках оценки рисков. Что касается прав субъекта данных, Компания должна уведомить субъект данных о слиянии и поглощении (M&A), учитывая право субъекта данных отказаться и гарантировать, что процесс M&A не нарушит права на конфиденциальность данных клиента.Ключевые слова: Закон о деловой конкуренции; цифровые платформы; слияние

Further Evidence on Competition in Nonprofit Donor Markets

This article introduces a novel empirical approach to the nonprofit literature that can measure competition between nonprofit organizations. Our approach provides a framework to determine how the number of organizations may be incorporated into empirical competitive analysis. We then systematically estimate the average population needed to support a given number of nonprofits in a market. We find that, for the 10 nonprofit industries examined, markets reach competitive levels once four or more nonprofits have entered. The results suggest that a relatively small number of nonprofits are needed to ensure robust competition. Our findings demonstrate that donor market competition is both predictive in nonprofit entry decisions and remarkably similar to competitive behavior among for-profit firms. We discuss several implications of these findings, in terms of both policy and future empirical research.

STUDYING ACTIVITIES OF COMPETITORS OF MOTOR TRANSPORT ENTERPRISE

This article discusses the study of competitors’ activity and presents some of the results of our research in this area. The main purpose of the study is to determine the positions, establish the strengths and weaknesses of their activities, assess their own ability to develop on this basis, the strategy and tactics of competitive behavior of the enterprise in the market. Based on the study of literature sources, the shortcomings of the existing model of analyzing competitors are identified, the proposals for its improvement are given. It is proposed to study the activities of competitors in the following sequence: identifying priority competitors, collecting data on their activities, identifying strengths and weaknesses, determining the position of the company among competitors. To determine the priority competitors, the analysis of the correlation field – the cell in the coordinate system – competitor and market segment is offered, in which we obtain the data: the volume of transport services, the market segment share, the share of traffic in total transport work. These indicators are determined for each competitor and show the priority of each competitor. At the first stage of the methodology of analysis of competitors’ activity, an approach to the definition of priority competitors is proposed, which means those of them who have the largest market share, both in the market as a whole and in a particular market segment. Much attention in the study is paid to determining the list of signs of competitors’ priority and establishing sources of information. On the basis of certain values of the enterprise and competitors there is an opportunity to establish the strengths and weaknesses of each of them. On the basis of the signs of enterprises’ activity that characterize their size, it is possible to obtain a generalized assessment of the market position of the trucking company and competitors, their strengths and weaknesses. At the same time, ratings are made without and with taking into account the importance of each criterion of the market position of MTE and competitors. The results of the research can be used in the process of determining the optimal strategy for motor transport enterprises.

Analyzing global competitiveness of Indonesian palm oil

Indonesia is the largest producer and exporter of palm oil in the world vegetable oil market. However, Indonesia export share had decreasing trend and there is an emerging competition from South America and African palm oil producer. Another issue is a non-competitive strategy from European countries for limiting palm oil import. This study aims to seek the pricing behavior of Indonesian exporter in the world palm oil market. This study shows Indonesian exporter apply Local Currency Price Stabilization Strategy to European countries but more competitive behavior to other importing countries. The LCPS strategy to European countries might be induced by more elastic palm oil demand on that region. The opposite with India and China that might have less elastic palm oil demand schedule. However, Indonesian exporter should have more awareness of future competition in the palm oil market and its pricing strategy, especially to emerging demand from India and China.

Effect of SARS-CoV-2 infection on host competing endogenous RNA and miRNA network

Competing endogenous RNAs (ceRNA) play a crucial role in cell functions. Computational methods that provide large-scale analysis of the interactions between miRNAs and their competitive targets can contribute to the understanding of ceRNA regulations and critical regulatory functions. Recent reports showed that viral RNAs can compete with host RNAs against host miRNAs. Regarding SARS-CoV-2 RNA, no comprehensive study had been reported about its competition with cellular ceRNAs. In this study, for the first time, we used the ceRNAnetsim package to assess ceRNA network effects per individual cell and competitive behavior of SARS-CoV-2 RNA in the infected cells using single-cell sequencing data. Our computations identified 195 genes and 29 miRNAs which vary in competitive behavior specifically in presence of SARS-CoV-2 RNA. We also investigated 18 genes that are affected by genes that lost perturbation ability in presence of SARS-CoV-2 RNA in the human miRNA:ceRNA network. These transcripts have associations with COVID-19-related symptoms as well as many dysfunctions such as metabolic diseases, carcinomas, heart failure. Our results showed that the effects of the SARS-CoV-2 genome on host ceRNA interactions and consequent dysfunctions can be explained by competition among various miRNA targets. Our perturbation ability perspective has the potential to reveal yet to be discovered SARS-CoV-2 induced effects invisible to conventional approaches.

When Think Tanks Refuse Thinking: Why American Pro-Market Conservatives Oppose Market Integration

American pro-market conservatives often oppose use of federal authority to rein in anti-competitive behavior by market actors. Competitive barriers, whether created by local jurisdictions or the absence of national competitive rules, go unaddressed. In international comparison, especially considering the European Union's use of central authority for market openness, this is quite puzzling. Based on interviews and archival research, I trace inattention to market barriers to contradictions within Hayek's neoliberalism and an enthusiastic reception within the American academy of one possible interpretation of those writings. This conception of markets—competitive federalism—diffused into the conservative law and economics movements, think tanks, and eventually mainstream conservative politics. It permitted conservatism to align a strong pro-market rhetoric with demands for states’ rights and federal retrenchment, albeit side-stepping many significant issues in economic theory and policy. Thus, conservatives pursue spending and tax cuts, deregulation and decentralization, often to the detriment of market openness.

Konkurencja wewnątrzorganizacyjna w grupach Kapitałowych

Business groups as one of the forms of capital concentration began to appear in developed economies from the end of the 19th century as a result of geographical expansion, diversification and the development of enterprises stimulated by industrialization. Currently, they take a significant part of the value added in the economy. In the context of institutional regulation of transactions, business groups are considered to be an intermediate structure between a pure market and a pure hierarchy. The subsidiaries within a business group enter into various interactions, partly based on market principles, and partly regulated by hierarchical coordination mechanisms. Although the main goal of this structure is cooperation of subsidiaries, in their functioning one can see the formation of relations characterized by competition. The aim of the article is to identify the perception of competition processes within business groups. It is a relatively unexplored issue, studied mainly on the example of international corporations, but of great importance for the effectiveness of the entire business group. The research was based on a sample of 121 parent companies listed on the Warsaw Stock Exchange. The results of the research show that subsidiaries within a business group display competitive behavior towards their sister entities, although of low intensity. The tendency towards the prevalence of the resource competition (on the internal market) over the product and market competition (on the external market) is also visible. The research findings confirmed the existing conceptual analyses and enabled an in-depth characterization of competitive processes in business groups from the perspective of the entire group, taking into account the intensity and areas of competitive behavior.

Cooperating elephants mitigate competition until the stakes get too high

Cooperation is ubiquitous in the animal kingdom as it aims to maximize benefits through joint action. Selection, however, may also favor competitive behaviors that could violate cooperation. How animals mitigate competition is hotly debated, with particular interest in primates and little attention paid thus far to nonprimates. Using a loose-string pulling apparatus, we explored cooperative and competitive behavior, as well as mitigation of the latter, in semi-wild Asian elephants (Elephas maximus). Our results showed that elephants first maintained a very high cooperation rate (average = 80.8% across 45 sessions). Elephants applied “block,” “fight back,” “leave,” “move side,” and “submission” as mitigation strategies and adjusted these strategies according to their affiliation and rank difference with competition initiators. They usually applied a “fight back” mitigation strategy as a sanction when competition initiators were low ranking or when they had a close affiliation, but were submissive if the initiators were high ranking or when they were not closely affiliated. However, when the food reward was limited, the costly competitive behaviors (“monopoly” and “fight”) increased significantly, leading to a rapid breakdown in cooperation. The instability of elephant cooperation as a result of benefit reduction mirrors that of human society, suggesting that similar fundamental principles may underlie the evolution of cooperation across species.