Publications

A technical note that defines short- and long-term growth rates and the growth horizon. View Details

Keywords: Cost of Capital; Stocks; Investment Return

Educators

Awards

Newcomen-Harvard Award

Winner of the Newcomen-Harvard Award for Best Paper Published in the Business History Review in 1994 for "Capital Budgeting Systems and Capabilities Investments in U.S. Companies after World War II" (with Kim B. Clark, spring 1994). View Details

2019
Working Paper

Design Rules, Volume 2: How Technology Shapes Organizations: Chapter 9 Organizing to Rationalize

The purpose of this chapter is to explain what the technologies of flow production with stochastic bottlenecks require and reward in organizations. I argue that organizations successfully implementing these technologies are likely to have unified governance and... View Details

Keywords: Information Technology; Organizational Design; Management Teams; Business History

June 1990 (Revised August 1990)
Case

Sun Microsystems, Inc.--1987 (A)

An integrated sequence of three cases on the financing of a technical workstation manufacturer. This case focuses on Sun's competitive strategy which requires an inordinately high rate of growth (over 20% per quarter) and commensurate amounts of working capital.... View Details

Keywords: Cash Flow; Competitive Strategy; Financing and Loans; Capital; Financial Strategy; Public Equity; Corporate Finance; Information Technology Industry

Educators

2020
Working Paper

Design Rules, Volume 2: How Technology Shapes Organizations: Chapter 3 Transaction Free Zones

In Chapter 2 we saw that the most economical locations for transactions in a task network are the so-called thin crossing points—places where transfers are easy to define, count and pay for. However, in many places in the task network, transfers of material, energy,... View Details

Keywords: Modularity; Information Technology; Organizations

SSRN

2020
Working Paper

Design Rules, Volume 2: How Technology Shapes Organizations: Chapter 2 Transactions in a Task Network

From the 1930s through today, many economists have conceived of large technical systems for the production of goods and services as a series of transactions. This point of view has led eminent economists to assert that transactions are the fundamental unit of analysis... View Details

Keywords: Modularity; Information Technology; Organizations

SSRN

2018
Working Paper

Design Rules, Volume 2: How Technology Shapes Organizations: Chapter 6 The Value Structure of Technologies, Part 1: Mapping Functional Relationships

Organizations are formed in a free economy because a person or group perceives value in carrying out a technical recipe that is beyond the capacity of a single person. Technology specifies what must be done, what resources must be assembled, what actions taken, and... View Details

Keywords: Language; Information Technology; System; Relationships

SSRN

2015
Chapter

Modularity and Organizations

Modularity describes the degree to which a complex system can be broken apart into subunits (modules) that can be recombined in various ways. Modularity is important for organizations and the economy because the boundaries of organizational units and corporations are... View Details

Keywords: Complexity; Organizations

8 Jul 2013
Lecture

The Impact of Modularity on Intellectual Property and Value Appropriation

17 Jun 2013 - 18 Jun 2013
Conference Presentation

Design as a Commons: Lessons from Teacher's Participation in the Design of New Schools

Aug 2012
Talk

Investigating Architectures and Knowledge

Aug 2012
Conference Presentation

Organizational Design in Business Ecosystems

8 Jun 2012 - 12 Jun 2012
Lecture

Legal Challenges of Distributed Innovation

2012
Article

Organization Design for Business Ecosystems

The modern corporation has long been the central focus of the field of organization design. Such firms can be likened to nation-states: they have boundaries that circumscribe citizen-employees, and they engage in production and trade. But individual corporations are... View Details

Keywords: Modularity; Business Ecosystems; Distributed Innovation; Problem Solving; Property Rights; Organization Design; Networks; Integration; Competition; Organizational Design; Innovation and Management

April 2013
Supplement

The Congressional Oversight Panel's Valuation of the TARP Warrants (A) (CW)

2012
Working Paper

Organization Design for Distributed Innovation

Systems of distributed innovation—so-called business ecosystems—have become increasingly prevalent in many industries. These entities generally encompass numerous corporations, individuals, and communities that might be individually autonomous but related through their... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Design; Innovation and Management; Social and Collaborative Networks; Intellectual Property; Rights; Governance Controls