IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/h/elg/eechap/13623_32.html
   My bibliography  Save this book chapter

Modularity and its Implications for the Theory of the Firm

In: Handbook on the Economics and Theory of the Firm

Author

Listed:
  • Andreas Reinstaller

Abstract

This unique Handbook explores both the economics of the firm and the theory of the firm, two areas which are traditionally treated separately in the literature. On the one hand, the former refers to the structure, organization and boundaries of the firm, while the latter is devoted to the analysis of behaviours and strategies in particular market contexts. The novel concept underpinning this authoritative volume is that these two areas closely interact, and that a framework must be articulated in order to illustrate how linkages can be created.

Suggested Citation

  • Andreas Reinstaller, 2012. "Modularity and its Implications for the Theory of the Firm," Chapters, in: Michael Dietrich & Jackie Krafft (ed.), Handbook on the Economics and Theory of the Firm, chapter 32, Edward Elgar Publishing.
  • Handle: RePEc:elg:eechap:13623_32
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.elgaronline.com/view/9781848446489.00044.xml
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Raghu Garud & Arun Kumaraswamy, 1995. "Technological and organizational designs for realizing economies of substitution," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 16(S1), pages 93-109.
    2. Richard N. Langlois, 2003. "The vanishing hand: the changing dynamics of industrial capitalism," Industrial and Corporate Change, Oxford University Press and the Associazione ICC, vol. 12(2), pages 351-385, April.
    3. Simon, Herbert A, 1978. "Rationality as Process and as Product of Thought," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 68(2), pages 1-16, May.
    4. Koen Frenken & Luigi Marengo & Marco Valente, 1999. "Interdependencies, nearly-decomposability and adaption," CEEL Working Papers 9903, Cognitive and Experimental Economics Laboratory, Department of Economics, University of Trento, Italia.
    5. Sendil K. Ethiraj & Daniel Levinthal, 2004. "Modularity and Innovation in Complex Systems," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 50(2), pages 159-173, February.
    6. Michael Dietrich & Jackie Krafft (ed.), 2012. "Handbook on the Economics and Theory of the Firm," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 13623.
    7. Richard N. Langlois, 2002. "Modularity in Technology and Organization," Chapters, in: Nicolai J. Foss & Peter G. Klein (ed.), Entrepreneurship and the Firm, chapter 2, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    8. Fleming, Lee & Sorenson, Olav, 2001. "Technology as a complex adaptive system: evidence from patent data," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 30(7), pages 1019-1039, August.
    9. Herbert A. Simon, 1996. "The Sciences of the Artificial, 3rd Edition," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262691914, December.
    10. Stefano Brusoni & Luigi Marengo & Andrea Prencipe & Marco Valente, 2004. "The Value and Costs of Modularity: A Cognitive Perspective," SPRU Working Paper Series 123, SPRU - Science Policy Research Unit, University of Sussex Business School.
    11. Hoetker, Glenn, 2002. "How Much You Know versus How Well I Know You: Selecting a Supplier for a Technically Innovative Component," Working Papers 02-0106, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, College of Business.
    12. Daniel A. Levinthal, 1997. "Adaptation on Rugged Landscapes," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 43(7), pages 934-950, July.
    13. Sendil K. Ethiraj & Daniel Levinthal & Rishi R. Roy, 2008. "The Dual Role of Modularity: Innovation and Imitation," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 54(5), pages 939-955, May.
    14. Olav Sorenson, 2003. "Interdependence and Adaptability: Organizational Learning and the Long--Term Effect of Integration," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 49(4), pages 446-463, April.
    15. Brusoni, Stefano & Prencipe, Andrea, 2001. "Unpacking the Black Box of Modularity: Technologies, Products and Organizations," Industrial and Corporate Change, Oxford University Press and the Associazione ICC, vol. 10(1), pages 179-205, March.
    16. Schaefer, Scott, 1999. "Product design partitions with complementary components," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 38(3), pages 311-330, March.
    17. Ashish Arora & Alfonso Gambardella & Enzo Rullani, 1997. "Division of Labour and the Locus of Inventive Activity," Journal of Management & Governance, Springer;Accademia Italiana di Economia Aziendale (AIDEA), vol. 1(1), pages 123-140, March.
    18. Lee Fleming, 2001. "Recombinant Uncertainty in Technological Search," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 47(1), pages 117-132, January.
    19. Jan W. Rivkin, 2001. "Reproducing Knowledge: Replication Without Imitation at Moderate Complexity," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 12(3), pages 274-293, June.
    20. Marengo, Luigi, et al, 2000. "The Structure of Problem-Solving Knowledge and the Structure of Organizations," Industrial and Corporate Change, Oxford University Press and the Associazione ICC, vol. 9(4), pages 757-788, December.
    21. Timothy J. Sturgeon, 2002. "Modular production networks: a new American model of industrial organization," Industrial and Corporate Change, Oxford University Press and the Associazione ICC, vol. 11(3), pages 451-496, June.
    22. Reinstaller, Andreas, 2007. "The division of labor in the firm: Agency, near-decomposability and the Babbage principle," Journal of Institutional Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 3(3), pages 293-322, December.
    23. Michael Dietrich & Jackie Krafft, 2012. "Handbook on the Economics and Theory of the Firm," Post-Print halshs-01378625, HAL.
    24. Langlois, Richard N. & Robertson, Paul L., 1992. "Networks and innovation in a modular system: Lessons from the microcomputer and stereo component industries," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 21(4), pages 297-313, August.
    25. Mario Benassi, 2009. "Investigating modular organizations," Journal of Management & Governance, Springer;Accademia Italiana di Economia Aziendale (AIDEA), vol. 13(3), pages 163-192, August.
    26. Paulo J. Gomes & Nitin R. Joglekar, 2008. "Linking modularity with problem solving and coordination efforts," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 29(5), pages 443-457.
    27. Saviotti, P. P. & Metcalfe, J. S., 1984. "A theoretical approach to the construction of technological output indicators," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 13(3), pages 141-151, June.
    28. von Hippel, Eric, 1990. "Task partitioning: An innovation process variable," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 19(5), pages 407-418, October.
    29. Hoetker, Glenn, 2002. "Do Modular Products Lead to Modular Organizations?," Working Papers 02-0130, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, College of Business.
    30. Fixson, Sebastian K. & Park, Jin-Kyu, 2008. "The power of integrality: Linkages between product architecture, innovation, and industry structure," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 37(8), pages 1296-1316, September.
    31. Glenn Hoetker, 2005. "How much you know versus how well I know you: selecting a supplier for a technically innovative component," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 26(1), pages 75-96, January.
    32. Ulrich, Karl, 1995. "The role of product architecture in the manufacturing firm," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 24(3), pages 419-440, May.
    33. Michael Hobday & Andrew Davies & Andrea Prencipe, 2005. "Systems integration: a core capability of the modern corporation," Industrial and Corporate Change, Oxford University Press and the Associazione ICC, vol. 14(6), pages 1109-1143, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Andreas Reinstaller, 2011. "The Modularity of Technology and Organisations. Implications for the Theory of the Firm," WIFO Working Papers 398, WIFO.
    2. Leonardo Bargigli, 2005. "The limits of modularity in innovation and production," KITeS Working Papers 176, KITeS, Centre for Knowledge, Internationalization and Technology Studies, Universita' Bocconi, Milano, Italy, revised Sep 2005.
    3. Leonardo Bargigli, 2005. "An evolutionary model for the dynamics of vertical integration and network-based production," Industrial Organization 0509002, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. Gang Zhang & Ruoyang Gao, 2010. "Modularity and incremental innovation: the roles of design rules and organizational communication," Computational and Mathematical Organization Theory, Springer, vol. 16(2), pages 171-200, June.
    5. Anna Cabigiosu & Arnaldo Camuffo, 2012. "Beyond the “Mirroring” Hypothesis: Product Modularity and Interorganizational Relations in the Air Conditioning Industry," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 23(3), pages 686-703, June.
    6. Frenken, Koen, 2006. "A fitness landscape approach to technological complexity, modularity, and vertical disintegration," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 17(3), pages 288-305, September.
    7. Gatti, Corrado & Volpe, Loredana & Vagnani, Gianluca, 2015. "Interdependence among productive activities: Implications for exploration and exploitation," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 68(3), pages 711-722.
    8. Vincent Frigant & Damien Talbot, 2003. "Convergence et diversité du passage à la production modulaire dans l'aéronautique et l'automobile en Europe," Post-Print hal-00246171, HAL.
    9. Khraisha, Tamer, 2020. "Complex economic problems and fitness landscapes: Assessment and methodological perspectives," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 390-407.
    10. Vincent Frigant & Damien Talbot, 2005. "Technological Determinism and Modularity: Lessons from a Comparison between Aircraft and Auto Industries in Europe," Industry and Innovation, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 12(3), pages 337-355.
    11. Rahul Kapoor, 2013. "Persistence of Integration in the Face of Specialization: How Firms Navigated the Winds of Disintegration and Shaped the Architecture of the Semiconductor Industry," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 24(4), pages 1195-1213, August.
    12. Nicholas Burton & Peter Galvin, 2020. "Component complementarity and transaction costs: the evolution of product design," Review of Managerial Science, Springer, vol. 14(4), pages 845-867, August.
    13. Bleda, Mercedes & Querbes, Adrien & Healey, Mark, 2021. "The influence of motivational factors on ongoing product design decisions," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 129(C), pages 562-569.
    14. Stefano Brusoni & Joachim Henkel & Michael G Jacobides & Samina Karim & Alan Mac & Phanish Puranam & Melissa Schilling, 2023. "The power of modularity today: 20 years of “Design Rules”," Industrial and Corporate Change, Oxford University Press and the Associazione ICC, vol. 32(1), pages 1-10.
    15. Nicholas Burton & Peter Galvin, 2022. "The effect of technology and regulation on the co-evolution of product and industry architecture," Industrial and Corporate Change, Oxford University Press and the Associazione ICC, vol. 31(4), pages 1056-1085.
    16. Vincent Frigant, 2005. "Vanishing hand versus Systems integrators - Une revue de la littérature sur l'impact organisationnel de la modularité," Revue d'Économie Industrielle, Programme National Persée, vol. 109(1), pages 29-52.
    17. Tee, Richard & Davies, Andrew & Whyte, Jennifer, 2019. "Modular designs and integrating practices: Managing collaboration through coordination and cooperation," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 48(1), pages 51-61.
    18. Anna Cabigiosu, 2018. "When do modular dominant designs emerge? A theoretical framework," Working Papers 05, Department of Management, Università Ca' Foscari Venezia.
    19. Vincent Frigant, 2007. "L'impact de la production modulaire sur l'approfondissement de la Division Internationale des Processus Productifs (DIPP)," Revue d'économie politique, Dalloz, vol. 117(6), pages 937-961.
    20. Giovanna Devetag & Enrico Zaninotto, 2001. "The imperfect hiding: Some introductory concepts and preliminary issues on modularity," ROCK Working Papers 010, Department of Computer and Management Sciences, University of Trento, Italy, revised 13 Jun 2008.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:elg:eechap:13623_32. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Darrel McCalla (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.e-elgar.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.