Consortium

Consortium

A consortium is an association of two or more individuals, companies, organizations or governments (or any combination of these entities) with the objective of participating in a common activity or pooling their resources for achieving a common goal.

Consortium is a Latin word, meaning 'partnership, association or society' and derives from consors 'partner', itself from con- 'together' and sors 'fate', meaning owner of means or comrade.

Contents

Examples

Educational

The Committee on Institutional Cooperation and Five Colleges, Inc., along with the Claremont Consortium are among of the oldest and most successful higher education consortia in the United States. The Committee on Institutional Cooperation includes the members of the Big Ten athletic conference plus the University of Chicago. The participants in Five Colleges, Inc. are: Amherst College, Hampshire College, Mount Holyoke College, Smith College, and the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. Another example of a successful consortium is the Five Colleges of Ohio of Ohio: Oberlin College, Ohio Wesleyan University, Kenyon College, College of Wooster and Denison University. The aforementioned Claremont Consortium (known as the Claremont Colleges) consists of Pomona College, Scripps College, Claremont Graduate University, Claremont McKenna College, Harvey Mudd College, Pitzer College, and the Keck Graduate Institute. These consortia have pooled the resources of their member colleges and the university to share human and material assets as well as to link academic and administrative resources.

An example of a non-profit consortium is the Appalachian College Association located in Berea, Kentucky. The association consists of 36 private liberal arts colleges and universities spread across the central Appalachian mountains in Kentucky, North Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia. Collectively these higher education institutions serve approximately 42,500 students. Six research universities in the region (University of Kentucky, University of North Carolina, University of Tennessee, West Virginia University, University of Virginia, and Virginia Tech) are affiliated with the ACA. These institutions assist the ACA in reviewing grant and fellowship applications, conducting workshops, and providing technical assistance. The ACA works to serve higher education in the rural regions of these five states.

Commercial

An example of a for-profit consortium is a group of banks that collaborate to make a loan—also known as a syndicate. This type of loan is more commonly known as a syndicated loan. In England it is common for a consortium to buy out financially struggling football clubs in order to keep them out of liquidation.

Alyeska Pipeline Service Company, the company that built the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System in the 1970s, initially was a consortium of BP, ARCO, ConocoPhillips, Exxon, Mobil, Unocal, and Koch Alaska Pipeline Company.

Airbus example

Airbus Industrie was formed in 1970 as a consortium of aerospace manufacturers. The retention of production and engineering assets by the partner companies in effect made Airbus Industrie a sales and marketing company.[1] This arrangement led to inefficiencies due to the inherent conflicts of interest that the four partner companies faced; they were both shareholders of, and subcontractors to, the consortium. The companies collaborated on development of the Airbus range, but guarded the financial details of their own production activities and sought to maximise the transfer prices of their sub-assemblies.[2]

In 2001, EADS (created by the merger of French, German and Spanish Airbus partner companies) and BAE Systems (the British partner company) transferred their Airbus production assets to a new company, Airbus SAS. In return, they got 80% and 20% shares respectively. BAE would later sell its share to EADS.

Coopetition

Coopetition is a word coined from cooperation and competition. It is used when companies otherwise competitors collaborate in a consortium to cooperate on areas non strategic for their core businesses. They prefer to reduce their costs on these non strategic areas and compete on other areas where they can differentiate better.

For example, the GENIVI Alliance is a not-for-profit consortium between different car makers in order to ease building an in-vehicle infotainment system.

Another example is the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), which is a consortium that standardizes web technologies like HTML, XML and CSS.

References

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domainHerbermann, Charles, ed (1913). "passim". Catholic Encyclopedia. Robert Appleton Company. 
  1. ^ Done, Kevin (2 February 2001). "Survey - Europe Reinvented: Airbus has come of age". Financial Times. 
  2. ^ Sparaco, Pierre (19 March 2001). "Climate Conducive For Airbus Consolidation". Aviation Week & Space Technology. 

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Look at other dictionaries:

  • consortium — con·sor·tium /kən sȯr shəm; shē əm/ n pl sor·tia / shə, shē ə/ also sortiums [Latin, sharing, partnership, from consort consors sharer, partner] 1: an agreement, combination, or group (as of companies) formed to undertake an enterprise beyond… …   Law dictionary

  • consortium — [ kɔ̃sɔrsjɔm ] n. m. • 1869; mot angl. , du lat. « association » ♦ Groupement d entreprises constitué pour la réalisation d une opération financière ou économique. Des consortiums d achat (⇒ comptoir) . Consortium bancaire, pour le financement d… …   Encyclopédie Universelle

  • consortium — 1829, from L. consortium fellowship, participation, society, from consors (gen. consortis; see CONSORT (Cf. consort)). Earlier, in British law, a term for right of husband s access to his wife …   Etymology dictionary

  • Consortĭum — (Consortio, lat.), 1) Gesellschaft; 2) Ehe …   Pierer's Universal-Lexikon

  • consortium — has a plural consortiums or (occasionally) consortia …   Modern English usage

  • consortium — ► NOUN (pl. consortia or consortiums) ▪ an association, typically of several companies. ORIGIN Latin, partnership …   English terms dictionary

  • consortium — [kən sôrt′ē əm; kənsôr′shē əm, kən sôr′shəm] n. pl. consortia [kən sôrt′ēə, kən sôr′shēə, kən sôr′shəmə] [L, community of goods: see CONSORT] 1. a partnership or association; specif., a) a temporary alliance of two or more business firms in a… …   English World dictionary

  • Consortium — Pour les articles homonymes, voir Consortium (homonymie). Un consortium (du latin signifiant « partenariat » ou « association ») est une collaboration temporaire entre plusieurs acteurs à un projet ou programme dans le but d… …   Wikipédia en Français

  • consortium — A group of companies that cooperate and share resources in order to achieve a common objective. Bloomberg Financial Dictionary * * * consortium con‧sor‧ti‧um [kənˈsɔːtiəm ǁ ɔːr ] noun consortiums PLURALFORM or consortia [ tiə] [countable] …   Financial and business terms

  • Consortium X — Le Consortium X du MIT était un organisme à but non lucratif créé en janvier 1988 par l institut de technologie du Massachusetts pour piloter le développement de l environnement graphique X, une technologie initiée en 1984 dans le cadre du projet …   Wikipédia en Français

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