The problem of designing, coordinating, and managing complex systems has been central to the management and organizations literature. Recent writings have tended to offer modularity as, at least, a partial solution to this design problem. Two unifying themes characterize the extant literature on...

This paper links the rise of new industries populated by skill-intensive companies, and the divergence in labour incomes between skills. Our model explains inequality by the fact that as the skilled workers move towards new Silicon-Valley type firms, the reduced complementarity between skilled...

This paper employs an original dataset for 146 US metropolitan areas to test some propositions that characterize two different models of organizing firms and industries: the managerial firm, epitomized by the work of Alfred Chandler, and the entrepreneurial system, recently highlighted by many...

This paper investigates the relationships between firm organization attributes, namely a structure á la Chandler, and their inward looking or exploitation attitude in R&D and innovation. We argue that because of sunk costs and learning processes an inward looking behavior is a consequence of...

By using the PatVal-EU dataset we find that the most important determinant of patent licensing is firm size. Patent breadth, value, protection, and other factors suggested by the literature also have an impact, but not as important. In addition, most of these factors affect the willingness to...

In this work we discuss the impact of the new ICT techno-economic paradigm upon the vertical and horizontal boundaries of the firm and ask whether the change in the sources of competitive advantage has resulted in changes in the size distribution of firms and also in the degree of concentration...

This paper estimates the determinants of labour productivity in European NUTS regions during 1989-1996. Unlike previous studies, which have focussed either on local technological capabilities or on agglomeration economies, we compare three potential explanations of regional advantages:...