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...

This paper combines theories of organizational design with theories of production to provide a novel perspective, which helps explain the technological forces that led to the rise of vertically integrated "modern" corporations in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. I describe the...