Any complex technological system can be decomposed into a number of subsystems and associated components, some of which are core to system function while others are only peripheral. The dynamics of how such “core-periphery” structures evolve and become embedded in a firm's innovation...

In this paper, we describe an operational methodology for characterising the architecture of complex technical systems and demonstrate its application to a large sample of software releases. Our methodology is based upon directed network graphs, which allows us to identify all of the direct and...