The notion of cooperative competition seems impossible on the face of things. Perhaps an extremely detail-oriented upper management or structure that exists above or outside the budgetary turfs of both entities could do that, but to do that properly would impose an extensive meeting overhead on both organizations to maintain comms with this other group or the upper management.

And then any action taken on that would feel like a sword falling at any moment on groups, often disbanding them or redirecting them in what feels like an unfair and politically motivated moment.

Remember that people in corporations gain some degree of emotional investment in what they are working on simply due to the economic reasons that they are getting paid to do that, and getting paid is survival, especially in the layoff-happy no-universal-healthcare no-social-safety-net American economy. You work or your life falls apart.

So when I say knife fight, of course it isn't literal knives, but the motivations and survival instincts are the same. People can feel like this is life and death.

Probably why back in the day places like DEC and IBM didn't fire people. You can alleviate some of the life-and-death paranoia underscoring budgetary knife fights with the knowledge that you won't be fired and you can work somewhere else in the company.

Of course that doesn't really exist anymore.