Co-Ordination and Co-Operation: Differences

The terms ‘Co-ordination’ and ‘Co-operation’ cannot be used interchangeably because they have different meanings. Co-ordination is an orderly arrangement of group efforts to provide unity of action in the pursuit of common objectives. It is a process of deliberately bringing together the efforts of various components of an enterprise in order to give them a unity of purpose.

But co-operation denotes the collective efforts by the persons working in an organisation voluntarily for accomplishing a particular purpose. It is the willingness of the individuals to help each other. So the concept of Co­ordination is broader in scope than that of co-operation.

Co-ordination is a deliberate effort by the management. It is true that existence of Co-operation among the members of the group facilitates Co­ordination. But that does not mean that Co-ordination originates automatically from the voluntary efforts of the group members. This can be illustrated by an example.

Five persons engaged in pushing a car out of mud have a strong desire to co-operate with another. But they did not succeed in their attempt. A sixth person arrives on the spot and asks them to change their positions. Now they are successful in their attempt. This is Co-ordination. Thus a manager plays an important role as a Co-ordinator. Effective Co-ordination cannot be achieved without the actual Co-operation of the group members. Co-ordination without Co-operation has no fruit and Co-ordination without Co-operation has no root.

The differences between the two concepts are:

(1) Nature:

Co-ordination is deliberate effort by a manager. Co-operation is voluntary attitude of organisational members.

(2) Objective:

It tries to achieve orderly arrangement of group efforts and tries to provide unity of action in the pursuit of organisational objectives. But co-operation is meant for collective efforts of the group to accomplish a particular objective.

(3) Relations:

Co-ordination is achieved through both formal and informal relations. Co-operation arises out of informal relations.

(4) Essential:

Co-ordination is essential for group performance to achieve common objective. Co-ordination is voluntary in nature. It is not an essential accompaniment of an organisation.

(5) Status:

Co-ordination is essence of management and it permeates all managerial functions. We cannot think of proper management without Co­ordination. Co-operation is not a function of management. It is an attitude of the employees and then the group. It facilitates Co-ordination.

(6) Scope:

Co-ordination is wider in scope than Co-operation. Co­operation is an attempt of Co-ordination. Co-ordination includes Co-operation. So Co-ordination is wider in scope than Co-operation.

For successful functioning every organisation requires both Co-ordination and Co-operation. Co-ordination is not possible without Co-ordination and Co-operation with ineffective in the absence of Co-ordination. Herbert Simon has pointed out that “Co-operation will usually be ineffective will not reach its goal whatever be the intention of participants in the absence of Co­ordination.”