Human and social competition is a central driving force within individual-based organizations and meta-organizations across sectors, industries and society at large. The validity of human and social competition research for predicting and managing outcomes within individual-based organizations, meta-organizations and in partnership performance and management is limited because it is normally confined to social comparison theory, sports and industry competition.

This Research Topic welcomes interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research contributions that demonstrate how human and social competition shape and impact existing theories and practices within corporate sustainability, sustainable development, HRM, HRD, IM, I/O, OB, governance, labor and employment relations, game theory, simulations, network analysis, interplay of human, social and artificial intelligence, market and non-market strategies, sharing economy, cross-sector partnerships, ethics, and cross-cultural management in government, business, society, environmental science and technology. This Research Topic draws on a wide range of academic disciplines and fields, including economics and other social sciences, management, marketing, policy analysis, operations research, engineering, labor markets and employment relations, and other related research and policy areas.

It is our hope to develop better theory, more perspectives and empirical research on this topic to show the processes and impacts of human and social competition within individual organizations, meta-organizations and partnerships. Competition can be positive but also negative and thus we welcome contributions that focus on positive, negative and emerging aspects of human and social competition. We also welcome manuscripts that examine cross-border political, social, environmental, economic and cultural factors for shaping human and social competition within organizational and collaborative partnerships. We encourage contributions in, but not limited to, the following areas:
• How does human and social competition evolve in the workplace? How is competition perceived?
• How is the mix of relationships and human and social interactions changing?
• What human and social strategies are being employed to take best advantage of resources (environmental, human, political, legal, economic, technological) and relationships? What are the keys to competitiveness at the human, social technological and organizational level moving forward?
• How do changes in the mix of resources (environmental, human, political, legal, economic, technological) and relationships affect human and social competition within organizations and how are social actors through societal pressure and governments responding to these changes?
• Theoretical development and/or empirical testing such as frequency measures within human, social, organizational, and psychological theories and research grounded in theories of organizational identification, workplace civility and incivility, identity, organizational justice, social influence, and decision-making.
• How can we define and integrate human and social competition within extant management/psychology theories?
• Are there new ways of conceptualizing human and social competition that might lead to novel insights of human and social competition within extant management/psychological theories?
• How might human and social competition influence industry governance and multi-stakeholder association efforts (e.g. Fair Trade), or global institutions codes (e.g. OECD Guidelines for Multina- tionals) in regulating corporate conduct and as a result industry competition?
• How might human and social competition shape anticompetitive behavior, engagement and collusion between firms in the same industry, when investors have common ownership?

Keywords: Performance, evaluation, assessment, attention, competition

Important Note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.