Publications
Publications
- 2018
- HBS Working Paper Series
Design Rules, Volume 2: How Technology Shapes Organizations: Chapter 6 The Value Structure of Technologies, Part 1: Mapping Functional Relationships
Abstract
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 what transfers made in order to convert stocks of material, energy, and information into products of value to someone.
The purpose of this chapter is to build a robust and versatile language that is capable of representing large technical systems. The language is based on elements I have labeled functional components. The language is more abstract than the language of technical recipes and task structures, thus it is capable of hiding details that may be distracting. However, the language also makes it possible to “track back” from each named functional component to a technical recipe (or the lack of one).
The purpose of this chapter is to build a robust and versatile language that is capable of representing large technical systems. The language is based on elements I have labeled functional components. The language is more abstract than the language of technical recipes and task structures, thus it is capable of hiding details that may be distracting. However, the language also makes it possible to “track back” from each named functional component to a technical recipe (or the lack of one).
Keywords
Citation
Baldwin, Carliss Y. "Design Rules, Volume 2: How Technology Shapes Organizations: Chapter 6 The Value Structure of Technologies, Part 1: Mapping Functional Relationships." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 19-037, October 2018.
