This paper examines the impact of unionization on profit- ability, growth and productivity using time series data on over 900 product line businesses in the North American manufacturing sector (predominantly U.S.). The first section of the paper develops a simple theoretical framework for...

The effect of unionization on productivity is examined in this paper using time-series data on selected establishments in the U.S. cement industry. The analysis combines statistical estimation of the union impact and interviews with union and management officials to forge a link between...

It is widely agreed that unionization affects the rules and procedures governing the employment relation in organized establishments. The effect of these changes on establishment productivity, however, is unclear. Existing evidence is based on a comparison of union/non-union differences in value...

Our goal in this paper is to explain the location of transactions (and contracts) in a larger system of production. We first characterize the system as a network of tasks and transfers. While transfers between agents are necessary and ubiquitous, the mundane transaction costos of standardizing,...

Our goal in this paper is to explain the location of transactions (and contracts) in a system of production. Systems of production are engineered systems, and where to place quot;transactionsquot; is one of the basic engineering problems that the designers of such systems face. We begin by...

When the design of an artifact is quot;modularized,quot; the elements of the design are split up and assigned to modules according to a formal architecture or plan. Some of the modules are quot;hidden,quot; meaning that design decisions in those modules do not affect decisions in other modules;...

In quot;Managing in the Age of Modularity,quot; which was written in June 1997 and appeared in the Harvard Business Review, we proposed that a new technological phenomenon, the modular design of complex computer systems, caused the emergence of a large modular cluster of firms and markets in the...

This is the first of a series of papers that investigates the institutional forms that can arise and be sustained by a quot;technology of design.quot; This paper sets up our quot;model worldquot; in terms of its technology, actors and larger context. In subsequent papers, we will define three...