Author Description

Modularity, Strategic Flexibility, and Knowledge Management presents a revolutionary and comprehensive view of the central role that modular architectures can play in redefining product strategies, in coordinating new kinds of flexible "modular" organizations, and in enabling new approaches to managing knowledge assets, and guiding organizational learning. The discussion of modularity draws on systems theory, options theory, and technology strategy concepts, and is complemented by numerous examples from Philips, General Electric, Volkswagen, and other companies pursuing modularity-based strategies. The volume clearly defines the core concepts of architecture and modularity, then builds on those concepts to explain the new product strategies, organization designs, and processes for knowledge management and organization learning that modular architectures make possible. The volume is written in a practical, non-technical style intended to make modularity concepts and methods readily understandable and useful to managers. At the same time, the discussion of modularity concepts is theoretically grounded and provides an essential introduction to architectures and modularity for management academics.