Modularity in action.GNU/Linux and free/Open source sotfware development model unleashed.

Organizational and managerial theories of modularity applied to the design and production of complex artifacts are used to interpret the rise and success of Free/Open Source Software methodologies and practices in software engineeringmodularity; software project management; free/open source software; division of labor; coordination; information hiding

Learning from the experience of others: an experiment on information contagion

Advances in stochastic system analysis have opened the way to a reconsideration of the processes through which behaviors spread in a population of individuals or organizations. One peculiar phenomenon affecting diffusion is information contagion (Arthur and Lane 1994). When agents have to choose on the basis of other people’s experience, rather than relying on their own direct observations, information externalities arise that drive towards the emergence of the arbitrary, stable dominance of one product over the competing one. We reproduced in controlled laboratory conditions the process of information contagion. The experiments show that when agents can only resort to the observation of other people’s experience in choosing between competing alternatives, the choice process generates some peculiar features: - information contagion among subjects generates self-reinforcing dynamics, amplifying initial asymmetries of products’ market shares; - this in turn produces path-dependent trajectories, highly dependent on early events in the choice sequence; - arbitrary asymmetric market shares tend to be stable in the long run, exhibiting lock-in phenomena; - agents choice criteria are heterogenous, giving rise to a mix of positive and negative feedback in the choice process, with the mix and the timing of such criteria affecting the final outcome

Talking about routines in the field: the emergence of organizational capabilities in a new cellular phone network company

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Less is more in physics:A small-scale Writing in the Disciplines (WiD) intervention

This article reports on a Writing in the Disciplines (WiD) intervention for first year undergraduate physics (and joint Honours) students. A short (200-250 word) assignment was designed to maximise studentsââ¬â¢ learning of specific scientific writing practices, including writing with appropriate clarity and academic style for a target audience, incorporating mathematical expressions in text, creating diagrams and referring to them in text, and appropriately using citing and referencing. Peer marking was employed to offer students formative feedback before they completed the assignment. The success of the assignment as a vehicle for student learning was evaluated by reviewing the studentsââ¬â¢ submissions and marks awarded, and through ten studentsââ¬â¢ reported focus group responses to the experience of carrying out the assignment, their reaction to peer marking, and their responses to the assessorââ¬â¢s written and verbal feedback. The effectiveness of the assignmentââ¬â¢s content and process, and the peer marking, are briefly discussed, and suggestions made as to how to improve this or similar assignments in future years

The Opificio delle Pietre Dure in Florence: excellence in spite of mediocrity

The Opificio delle Pietre Dure in Florence (Masonry Workshop) is of ancient lineage, dating back to the Botteghe Granducali set up in 1588 by the Medici Grand Duke Ferdinand I. In the 1880's, after the Unification of Italy, it was turned into a restoration workshop (a discipline, at that time, just emerging), specializing at first in stone materials, then eventually becoming a state institute. After the 1966 flood in Florence, when most of the masterpieces stored in museums, libraries and churches were damaged, the Opificio played a fundamental role organizing around a single institution most of the Florentine laboratories active in restoring the artistic works and other complementary competencies. Facing the emergence was an extraordinary learning opportunity for the Opificio and this experience deeply marked the subsequent evolution of this organization. Given the uniqueness of the damage and the huge amount of work that had to be done without delays, tradition and experimentation were mixed together by taking advantage of both craftsmanship skills in art restoration and complementary scientific competencies. Our study investigates the historical development of the Opificio with regard to the evolution of the institutional environment under a strategic change perspective. The inconsistency between the nature of its "task" and the set of inflexible rules deriving from the institutional setting (i.e. a branch of the Ministry) is one of the most critical issues characterizing this organization. Because a large part of technical and organizational capabilities are context dependent and expressed in a tacit form, it is critical to analyze the everyday activity in an extensive way and rely our conclusions on direct observations. On the one hand, art restoration is supposed to be strongly based on tradition and experience; on the other hand, each project is unique and different from the previous one and it rises new problems and it leaves room for innovation and experimentation. What is striking about the Opificio is such a contradiction between its excellence in core competencies (art restoration) and the daily struggle with procedures and constraints posed by the administrative life. Making sense of organizational survival rises some intriguing issues in the interplay between processes at different levels. Looking at the micro processes that we observed in the everyday activity suggests to explore different interpretations of the coupling between superior reputation and administrative mediocrity that we provide and compare in the paper