difference between cooperate and collaborate

cooperate - (

For starters, they are synonyms.

There is a subtle difference however.

• When you cooperate with someone you work with them, help them, do what someone has asked or told you to do. And you do it without complaining or arguing.
• Cooperation could just mean that you've given me help on something I'm working on and that I'm ultimately responsible for.)

collaborate - (

• If you collaborate with me on a project, we have shared authorship.

• ollaboration is linked to "agreement" (like a contract for a common short-term benefit

• Collaborate means to work together with 2 or more people to produce a piece of work. It’s a co-production. Collaborate is particularly used in the context of whole-of-government contexts, or multi-agency contexts. In other words, to produce a result when multiple agencies are involved, all players must collaborate – work together to produce a result.)

What's the difference between “Collaborate” and “Cooperate”?

(Both of these words seem to mean much the same thing: working together to achieve some goal. I can instinctively feel a difference between them, but I can't easily put it into words.

Can you help me? Do these words come from different etymologies which might explain the difference?)

• I think it has to do with ownership of the outcome. If you collaborate with me on a project, we have shared authorship. Cooperation could just mean that you've given me help on something I'm working on and that I'm ultimately responsible for.

• Please allow a foreign amateur to propose a slightly different angle to the problem - timing. To me co-operation and co-laboration tastes like:
  • Laboration = 'work', is short term, while
  • Operation = business as usual, is ongoing and long term.
  That would lead to cooperation being linked to "partnering" (for common long-term benefits), while collaboration is linked to "agreement" (like a contract for a common short-term benefit).

• Cooperating means working with someone in the sense of enabling: making them more able to do something (typically by providing information or resources they wouldn't otherwise have).
  Collaborating means actually working alongside someone (from Latin laborare: to work) to achieve something.

What is the difference? Cooperate and collaborate

Job specifications refer to both of these terms. This reference may be in the context of team behaviour, interpersonal skills, or stakeholder management.

Cooperate has been in favour for many years.

Collaborate is a more recent addition to selection criteria language. So what’s the difference?

For starters, they are synonyms.

There is a subtle difference however.

When you cooperate with someone you work with them, help them, do what someone has asked or told you to do. And you do it without complaining or arguing.

Collaborate means to work together with 2 or more people to produce a piece of work. It’s a co-production.

Collaborate is particularly used in the context of whole-of-government contexts, or multi-agency contexts. In other words, to produce a result when multiple agencies are involved, all players must collaborate – work together to produce a result.

Being a cooperative member of a team can mean sharing information, offering help to others, working back to help out. However, you may not be working together with the other staff to produce something together.

While I might need to cooperate and collaborate with my team colleagues, collaboration becomes particularly important on more complex projects involving multiple sections, teams or agencies. For example, if I’m introducing a new computer system, I will need to collaborate and cooperate with many areas across an organisation. If I’m solving major issues, like global warming, then major collaboration is needed.

Collaboration is then, a higher order skill, demanding more than cooperation. To collaborate well I need to be able to:

• Network
• Build alliances and partnerships
• Manage meaning
• Negotiate
• Persist
• Overcome obstacles
• Be flexible

Examples that demonstrate cooperation and collaboration:

• Coached, trained or mentored team colleague
• Alert colleagues to problems, ideas, opportunities
• Consistently complete work asked to do
• Help out colleagues in times of high pressure
• Seek out like-minded people or organisations to form alliances
• Actively build networks to share information
• Work on projects where there are multiple players (not team colleagues) each making a contribution