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There is increasing interest in modularity in the midst of our ongoing electronic revolution. To understand the implications of modularity across technological, organizational, and institutional contexts, the editors have brought together in one place seminal articles on architectures, networks, and organizations.
These articles address modularity from a variety of disciplinary perspectives and from multiple levels of analyses. The applicability of original insights to contemporary business environments as well as updates are summarized in fresh commentaries by each author.
The volume itself is designed to be modular. At the same time, it has been designed to highlight key interdependencies across the concepts of modularity, networks, architectures, and organizations. Readers are encouraged to make connections among different domains and to formulate new research questions and hypotheses.
The book includes a commentary co-authored by the late Nobel Laureate Herbert A. Simon, to whom the book is dedicated.
List of contents
Acknowledgments. Introduction: Managing in The Modular Age: Architectures, Networks and Organizations. (R. Garud, A. Kumaraswamy, R. Langlois).
Part I: Overview. 1. The Architecture of Complexity. (H. A. Simon).
Commentary. (M. Augier and H. A. Simon).
2. Technological and Organizational Designs to Achieve Economies of Substitution. (R. Garud and A. Kumaraswamy).
Commentary.
3. Networks And Innovation In A Modular System: Lessons From The Microcomputer And Stereo Component Industries. (R. N. Langlois and P. L. Robertson).
Commentary.
Part II: Modularity And Architectures. 4. The Role of Product Architecture in the Manufacturing Firm. (K. Ulrich).
Commentary.
5. Managing in an Age of Modularity. (C. Y. Baldwin and K. B. Clark).
Commentary.
6. Towards a General Modular Systems Theory and Its Application to Interfirm Product Modularity. (M. A. Schilling).
Commentary.
Part III: Networks And Standards. 7. The Economics of Networks. (N. Economides).
Commentary.
8. The Art of Standards Wars. (C. Shapiro and H. R. Varian).
Commentary.
Part IV: Field-Level And Organizational Dynamics. 9. Dynamics of Organizational Communities and Technological Bandwagons: An Empirical Investigation of Community Evolution in the Microprocessor Market. (J. Wade).
Commentary.
10. Dominant Designs, Technological Cycles and Organizational Outcomes. (M. L. Tushman and J. P. Murmann).
Commentary. (G. Westerman and M. L. Tushman).
11. Modularity, Flexibility and Knowledge Management in Product and Organizational Design. (R. Sanchez and J. T. Mahoney).
Commentary. (R. Sanchez).
Index.
About the author
Raghu Garud is Associate Professor of Management and Organizational Behavior at Leonard N. Stern School of Business, New York University. Besides authoring many articles on modularity that have been published in leading management journals, Raghu has co-edited and co-authored several books, including
Path Dependence and Creation (2001),
The Innovation Journey (1999), and
Technological Innovation: Oversights and Foresights (1997). He was Program Chair for the Technology and Innovation Management Division for the 2001 Academy of Management meetings.
Arun Kumaraswamy is Assistant Professor of Management at the School of Business - Camden, Rutgers University. He has published several papers on modularity and standards in journals such as the
Academy of Management Journal and
the Strategic Management Journal.
Richard N. Langlois is Professor of Economics at the University of Connecticut. He is the author of numerous articles and books, including
Firms, Markets, and Economic Change: A Dynamic Theory of Business Institutions (1995). His history of the microcomputer industry won the Newcomen Award as the best article in
Business History Review in 1992.
Summary
This book brings together seminal articles by leading scholars of technological and organizational systems, exploring the impact of a modularitya . Modularity refers to an ability to take apart and put together differenct products and networks, or to a mix and matcha components in order to meet different user specifications.
