>I don't know whether this is common in other industries, but at top American law firms, salary raises and bonuses are lockstep. That means everyone gets paid based strictly on seniority. At many firms, this even carries through the partnership ranks.

This is really only true for the associates any more, and it's a source of a lot of frustration. Mostly, I hear complaints about how either senior associates or junior partners are "carrying" the senior partners in some cases because their billing rate and total hours billed is grossly disproportionate to their income. Also, while salary might be locked based on which year an associate is in, there are all kinds of games played with which year associates get slotted into, especially if they move laterally between firms.

I don't agree that lock-step systems increase cooperation; if anything, they turn competition into a winner-takes-all game because they're generally associated with a strong "up-or-out" culture where you either get promoted or culled over time. That's not likely to encourage cooperation between peers.