This paper is a review of research in product development, which we define as the transformation of a market opportunity into a product available for sale. Our review is broad, encompassing work in the academic fields of marketing, operations management, and engineering design. The value of this breadth is in conveying the shape of the entire research landscape. We focus on product development projects within a single firm. We also devote our attention to the development of physical goods, although much of the work we describe applies to products of all kinds. We look inside the “black box ” of product development at the fundamental decisions that are made by intention or default. In doing so, we adopt the perspective of product development as a deliberate business process involving hundreds of decisions, many of which can be usefully supported by knowledge and tools. We contrast this approach to prior reviews of the literature, which tend to examine the importance of environmental and contextual variables, such as market growth rate, the competitive environment, or the level of top-management support.

The tacit assumption that increased product modularity is associated with advantageous increases in organizational modularity underlies much of the literature on modularity. Previous empirical investigations of this assumption, few in number, have faced numerous confounding factors and generated conflicting results. I build a causal model for the relationship between product and organizational modularity, which I test using a distinctive empirical setting that controls for confounding factors present in previous studies. I find support for only part of the assumed relationship, showing that modularity is a more multi−faceted concept than previously recognized. In particular, increased product modularity enhances reconfigurability of organizations more quickly than it allows firms to move activities out of hierarchy. The paper contributes to the emerging stream of research that focuses on the previously under−appreciated costs of designing and maintaining a modular organization.

Knowledge management systems (KMS) are the tools and techniques that support knowledge management practices in organizations. The study of these systems consists of a small but growing body of literature. In the last two years alone, at least four books, two special editions of journals, and a number of academic and practitioner articles have been published related to this area. However, much of the work that has been published has been in the form of isolated survey studies, or anecdotal case studies into particular aspects of KMS. This has made it difficult to build a cumulative body of knowledge into the development, use and management of these systems. The purpose of this paper is to “survey the current landscape ” of KMS, and provide a framework for research into the development and use of these systems in organizations. The intent is to highlight areas where “gaps ” exist in what we know about knowledge management systems and suggest ways to close those gaps.

: This study addresses the following questions: (1) can organizations learn how to manage infrequent and heterogeneous tasks ? (2) If they can, then what are the mechanisms that might explain learning under these circumstances ?, and (3) what are the limitations under which these mechanisms operate ? A model based on explicit knowledge codification and tacit experience accumulation is submitted and tested using data from a sample of 183 acquisitions in the US banking industry. Measures of post-acquisition integration strategies and of preacquisition resource characteristics are included in the model. We find that tacit knowledge accumulation significantly impacts performance when the experiences are highly homogeneous, and that knowledge codification improves acquisition performance in the context of high post-acquisition integration, i.e. when the organizational challenge is particularly complex. Also, the level of integration between the two firms involved in the acquisition positive...

The term incident command system (ICS) denotes a particular approach to assembly and control of the highly reliable, temporary organizations employed by many firefighters, police, and other public safety professionals to manage diverse resources at a wide variety of emergency scenes. Our inductive study of a fire department’s use of the ICS identified three main factors enabling this distinctively bureaucratic system to produce remarkably flexible and reliable organizations for complex and volatile task environments. In general, this research suggests the possibility of new organizational forms able to capitalize on the control and efficiency benefits of bureaucracy, while at the same time avoiding or overcoming the considerable tendencies toward inertia that are thought to accompany bureaucratic systems. Recent organization science research indicates that an expanding number of organizations are facing increasingly unforgiving socio-political-economic contexts (cf. D’Aveni, 1994). Operational failures resulting in inappropriate, incomplete, laggardly or otherwise mindless organizational responses to unexpected and demanding environmental contingencies (such as major and unforeseen competitive threats, product malfunctions and recalls, supplier collapses, technology breakdowns, etc.) are ever more likely to be immediately

Recent advances in information and communication technologies (ICTs) have provided a substantial push towards the codification of organisational knowledge and practices. It is argued that codification, and the subsequent delegation of organisational memory to software, entails fundamental structural transformations to knowledge and routines as these are reconfigured and replicated in the form of new computer-embedded representations. The paper demonstrates that the process of embedding knowledge and routines in software holds fundamental implications for the ability of heterogeneous organisational groups, functions and communities to coordinate their efforts and share knowledge across function-, discipline- and taskspecific boundaries.

Organizational and managerial theories of modularity applied to the design and production of complex artifacts are used to interpret the rise and success of Free/Open Source Software methodologies and practices in software engineering. Strengths and risks of the adoption of a modular approach in software project management are introduced and are related to the achievements of the GNU/Linux project as a whole, as well as to the outcomes of some of its sub--projects. It is suggested that mindful implementation of the principles of modularity may improve the rate of success of many Free/Open Source software projects. Specific case studies here depicted, as well as indirect observation of common programming practices employed by Free/Open Source developers and users, suggest a possible revision towards an improved theory of modularity that may be extended also to settings di#erent from software production.

transactions, and the boundaries of firms

Abstract not found

Ever increasing on-chip integration in the semiconductor industry, spurred by miniaturization, is at the point where large-scale electronic systems can be put on a single chip. The proliferation of such “systems-on-a-chip ” has important repercussions for the structure of the electronics industry, and the strategies of electronics firms. In a detailed case study, we apply a theoretical framework developed in Somaya and Teece (2000) to understand how system-on-a-chip integration is altering the balance between integrated approaches, components trading, and the licensing of “design modules ” in the semiconductor industry. Consistent with the framework, we observe a burgeoning market for licensed design modules in the industry, along with the primarily in-house design approach being pursued by large integrated firms. Important technical and institutional factors that are shaping industry structure, and the strategies being pursued by different types of firms are documented. Based on the framework, implications are drawn for the strategies of firms responding to technological change of the kind engendered by system-on-chip in the semiconductor industry. We extend the Somaya-Teece framework to include firm strategies that seek to influence the institutional environment in which they operate, and thus alter the balance between competing organizational modes. Keywords: