Publications

Educators

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October 2007 (Revised December 2008)
Background Note

Evaluating M&A Deals: How Poison Pills Work

The poison pill defense against hostile takeovers was invented in 1982 by Martin Lipton, of Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen and Katz. Pills are considered the most effective of all the normal defenses against a hostile bidder. Describes the two basic types of poison pills... View Details

Keywords: Negotiation Deal; Mergers and Acquisitions

Educators

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03 Feb 2015
First Look

First Look: February 3

MacCormack, Alan, Robert Lagerstrom, and Carliss Y. Baldwin Abstract—We propose a network-based methodology for operationalizing enterprise... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

2019
Working Paper

Design Rules, Volume 2: How Technology Shapes Organizations: Chapter 13 Platform Systems vs. Step Processes—The Value of Options and the Power of Modularity

This is the first chapter in Part 3. Its purpose is to contrast the value structure of platform systems with step processes from a technological perspective. I first review the basic technical architecture of computers and argue that every computer is inherently a... View Details

Keywords: Platform Systems; Step Processes; Computer Architecture; Modularity; Information Technology; Digital Platforms

17 Oct 2017
First Look

First Look at New Research and Ideas, October 17, 2017

Digital Agility: The Impact of Software Portfolio Architecture on IT System Evolution By: MacCormack, Alan, Robert Lagerström, Martin Mocker, and Carliss Y. View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

2017
Working Paper

Explaining the Vertical-to-Horizontal Transition in the Computer Industry

This paper seeks to explain the technological forces that led to the rise of vertically integrated corporations in the late 19th century and the opposing forces that led to a vertical-to-horizontal transition in the computer industry 100 years later. I first model the... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Design; Business History; Vertical Integration; Horizontal Integration; Digital Platforms; Computer Industry

2012
Working Paper

Risky Business: The Impact of Property Rights on Investment and Revenue in the Film Industry

By: Venkat Kuppuswamy and Carliss Y. Baldwin

Our paper tests a key prediction of property rights theory, specifically, that agents will respond to marginal incentives embedded in property rights when making non-contractible, revenue-enhancing investments (Grossman and Hart, 1986; Hart and Moore, 1990). Using rich... View Details

Keywords: Property Rights; Property; Rights; Investment; Contracts; Revenue; Motivation and Incentives; Motion Pictures and Video Industry; United States

2016
Working Paper

The Mirroring Hypothesis: Theory, Evidence and Exceptions

By: Lyra J. Colfer and Carliss Y. Baldwin

The mirroring hypothesis predicts that organizational ties within a project, firm, or group of firms (e.g., communication, collocation, employment) will correspond to the technical patterns of dependency in the work being performed. A thorough understanding of the... View Details

Keywords: Modularity; Innovation; Product And Process Development; Organization Design; Design Structure; Organizational Ties; Mirroring Hypothesis; Industry Architecture; Product Architecture; Complex Technical Systems; Information Technology; Organizational Design; Organizational Structure; Relationships; Innovation and Invention; Product Development

2019
Working Paper

Design Rules, Volume 2: How Technology Shapes Organizations: Chapter 15 The IBM PC

The IBM PC was the first digital computer platform that was open by as a matter of strategy, not necessity. The purpose of this chapter is to understand the IBM PC as a technical system and set of organization choices in light of the theory of how technology shapes... View Details

Keywords: IBM; Personal Computer; Digital Platforms; System; Strategy

06 Jun 2017
First Look

First Look at New Research and Ideas: June 6, 2017

implications from suboptimal peer-selection. Download working paper: https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=51919 Designing an Agile Software Portfolio Architecture: The Impact of Coupling on Performance By: MacCormack, Alan,... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

2021
Other Unpublished Work

Computer-Implemented Methods and Systems for Measuring, Estimating, and Managing Economic Outcomes and Technical Debt in Software Systems and Projects: US Patent 11,126,427 B2

By: Daniel J. Sturtevant, Carliss Baldwin, Alan MacCormack, Sunny Ahn and Sean Gilliland

An interrelated set of tools and methods is disclosed for: (1) measuring the relationship between software source code attributes (such as code quality, design quality, test quality, and complexity metrics) and software economics outcome metrics (such as... View Details

Keywords: Technical Debt; Applications and Software; Economics; Measurement and Metrics; Patents

2006
Working Paper

A Dependency Matrix Tool to Analyze Software Architecture

By: Alan MacCormack, Carliss Y. Baldwin and John Rusnak

July 2006
Article

Exploring the Structure of Complex Software Designs: An Empirical Study of Open Source and Proprietary Code

By: Alan MacCormack, John Rusnak and Carliss Y. Baldwin

Keywords: Applications and Software; Design; Information; Internet and the Web

Find at Harvard

07 Mar 2017
First Look

First Look at New Research, March 7

Between Architecture Coupling and Software Vulnerabilities: A Google Chrome Case By: Lagerström, Robert, Carliss Y. Baldwin, Alan MacCormack, Dan... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

2010
Working Paper

When Open Architecture Beats Closed: The Entrepreneurial Use of Architectural Knowledge

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... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Investment Return; Growth and Development Strategy; Product Design; Organizational Design; Competitive Advantage; Technology Industry

2019
Working Paper

Design Rules, Volume 2: How Technology Shapes Organizations: Chapter 17 The Wintel Standards-based Platform

The purpose of this chapter is to use the theory of bottlenecks laid out in previous chapters to better understand the dynamics of an open standards-based platform. I describe how the Wintel platform evolved from 1990 through 2000 under joint sponsorship of Intel and... View Details

Keywords: Open Platforms; Bottlenecks; Wintel Platform; Disintermediation; Information Infrastructure; Applications and Software; Business History; Digital Platforms; Computer Industry

24 Sep 2013
First Look

First Look: September 24

By: Gil, Nuno, and Carliss Y. Baldwin Abstract—We argue that a design commons can be an advantageous organizational form under two salient conditions: 1) high... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

2020
Working Paper

Design Rules, Volume 2: How Technology Shapes Organizations: Chapter 4 The Mirroring Hypothesis: Linkages Inside and Across Transaction Free Zones

A technology is a specific way to achieve a material goal. It describes a feasible path—a recipe—by which a group of people can arrive at a goal that none could achieve individually. Technical recipes thus require linkages between and among the various contributors to... View Details

Keywords: Modularity; Mirroring Hypothesis; Information Technology; Organizations

2018
Working Paper

Design Rules, Volume 2: How Technology Shapes Organizations: Chapter 5 Complementarity

The purpose of this chapter is to relate the theory of task networks and technology set forth in previous chapters to theories of firm boundaries from economics and management. Complementary goods have more value when used together than separately. Complementarity may... View Details

Keywords: Complementarity