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...

Every artifact has a design, and thus designs are an important class of information goods. In this paper, we establish the scope of the design valuation methodology based on real options, which we developed in Design Rules, Volume 1, The Power of Modularity (MIT Press, 2000). We argue that if an...

This study investigates the relationship between patenting activity, productivity, and market competition at the firm level. We focus on the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) industry as a particular case of an innovative sector whose contribution to modern economies is pivotal. For...

What is accepted as payment has changed over time, and so have the ways in which payments are made. Bitcoin, a cryptographic computer protocol, represents for some just another currency to release and receive payments. For others to speculate or to diversify into an alternative asset class. In...

In this paper we develop a theory of patenting in which a firm preserves its reputation to only apply for a patent whenever a truly patentable idea has been generated. Firms have a short-run incentive to deviate and receive additional rents from unworthy pending patents, as well as potential...

Whether and how copyright promotes creative expression is the central question of copyright law. The standard rationale—that copyright provides economic incentives to create—has attracted sustained critique. Supplementing existing theories, this Article advances a novel organizational theory...

One of the most striking and undertheorized aspects of fields that commercialize patented technologies is the dynamic interplay of structural forces pushing toward consolidation. Of course, technological industries are complex ecosystems featuring numerous players of different sizes along the...

This paper describes how entrepreneurial firms can use superior architectural knowledge to open up a technical system to gain strategic advantage. The strategy involves, first, identifying “bottlenecks” in the existing system, and then creating a new open architecture that isolates the...

It is widely known that demand-pull policies in the United States, especially the federal investment tax credits (ITC) and the California Solar Initiative (CSI), have led to a rapid escalation in the installation of solar photovoltaic (PV) systems. But there has been little systematic study into...