Modularity refers to the scheme by which interfaces shared among components in agiven product architecture are standardized and specified to allow for greater reusability and commonality sharing of components among product families. The management of innovation through modular product...

In evolutionary economics the firm is the sole locus of economic and technological change, and only little is said about the analytical importance of economic relationships. An emerging theme in the fields of economic sociology, however, is the idea that economic activities are embedded in...

Synergy is a concept fraught with ambiguity about its sources and effects, perhaps as a consequence of of previous literature on the subject not distinguishing between these. In this paper, the sources of synergy are separated from the sources of sustainable competitive advantage in order to...

Many writers argue that economic organization will be strongly transformed in the emerging knowledge economy. Thus, authority relations will wither, or at least undergo significant changes; legal and ownership-based definitions of the boundaries of firms will become irrelevant; and there will be...

Infusing coordination mechanisms that are characteristic of market organization in hierarchies has become a much-used way of simultaneously increasing entrepreneurialism and motivation in firms. However, such "internal hybrids" are inherently problematic, because of fundamental credibility...

We discuss contract theory from a combined Austrian/new institutional view. In the latter view, the world is seen as shot through with ignorance and transaction costs, but, as a tendency, entrepreneurial activity responds to the problems caused by these. All modeling must critically reflect...

This paper explains two fundamental approaches to knowledge management. The tacit knowledge approach emphasizes understanding the kinds of knowledge that individuals in an organization have, moving people to transfer knowledge within an organization, and managing key individuals as knowledge...