238. Conway's Law & Division of Labor
Channel: THUNK
Date: 2023-04-24

Melvin Conway noticed a curious symmetry between the shape of organizations & the technologies they created, an observation that might be invaluable for avoiding disaster.

-Links for the Curious-

How Do Committees Invent? (Conway, 1968) - http://www.melconway.com/Home/Committees_Paper.html

The mirroring hypothesis: theory, evidence, and exceptions (Colfer & Baldwin, 2016) - https://www.hbs.edu/ris/Publication%20Files/Colfer%20Baldwin%20Mirroring%20Hypothesis%20Ind%20Corp%20Change-2016_8aa320ff-6aa6-42ef-b259-d139012faaf6.pdf

Architectural Innovation: The Reconfiguration of Existing Product Technologies and the Failure of Established Firms (Henderson & Clark, 1990) - https://www.researchgate.net/publication/200465578_Architectural_Innovation_The_Reconfiguration_of_Existing_Product_Technologies_and_the_Failure_of_Established_Firms

Modularity-As-Property, Modularization-As-Process, And ‘Modularity’-As-Frame: Lessons From Product Architecture Initiatives In The Global Automotive Industry (Macduffie, 2013) - https://faculty.wharton.upenn.edu/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/16_MacDuffie_2013_GlobalStrategyJournal.pdf

Modularity, value and exceptions to the mirroring hypothesis (Burton & Galvin, 2022) - https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0148296322006269

Patterns of Modularization: The Dynamics of Product Architecture in Complex Systems (Brusoni & Prencipe, 2011)

Where Do Transactions Come From? (Baldwin & Clark, 2002) - https://conference.nber.org/confer/2002/orgec02/baldwin.pdf

On the Wealth of Nations - https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/3300/pg3300-images.html#chap36

Product and Organizational Modularity: A Contingent View of the Mirroring Hypothesis (Sorkun & Furlan, 2016) - https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/emre.12101

Coordination and organizational learning in the firm (Marengo, 1992) - https://yildizoglu.fr/moddyn2/articles/marengo_JEE_1992.pdf

The Modularity Trap: Innovation, Technology Phase Shifts and the Resulting Limits of Virtual Organizations (Chesbrough & Kusunoki, 2001) - http://pustaka.unp.ac.id/file/abstrak_kki/EBOOKS/KNOWLEDGE%20MANAGEMENT%20Managing%20industrial%20knowledge,%20Creation,%20transfer%20and%20utilization.pdf#page=211
Adam Smith and the Costs of the Division of Labor (Aragona, 2020) - https://www.adamsmithworks.org/speakings/adam-smith-and-the-costs-of-the-division-of-labor

The Big Idea: The Age of Hyperspecialization (Malone et al, 2011) - https://hbr.org/2011/07/the-big-idea-the-age-of-hyperspecialization

Marx's View of the Division of Labor - https://fee.org/articles/marxs-view-of-the-division-of-labor/

The influence of organizational structure on software quality: an empirical case study (Nagappan et al, 2008) - https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/1368088.1368160

Exploring the Duality between Product and Organizational Architectures: A Test of the “Mirroring” Hypothesis (MacCormack, 2012) - https://dash.harvard.edu/bitstream/handle/1/34403525/maccormack%2Cbaldwin%2Crusnak_exploring-the-duality.pdf