Exploring the duality between product and organizational architectures: A test of the “mirroring” hypothesis

A variety of academic studies argue that a relationship exists between the structure of an organization and the design of the products that this organization produces. Specifically, products tend to “mirror” the architectures of the organizations in which they are developed. This dynamic occurs because the organization's governance structures, problem solving routines and communication patterns constrain the space in which it searches for new solutions. Such a relationship is important, given that product architecture has been shown to be an important predictor of product performance, product variety, process flexibility and even the path of industry evolution.We explore this relationship in the software industry. Our research takes advantage of a natural experiment, in that we observe products that fulfill the same function being developed by very different organizational forms. At one extreme are commercial software firms, in which the organizational participants are tightly-coupled, with respect to their goals, structure and behavior. At the other, are open source software communities, in which the participants are much more loosely-coupled by comparison. The mirroring hypothesis predicts that these different organizational forms will produce products with distinctly different architectures. Specifically, loosely-coupled organizations will develop more modular designs than tightly-coupled organizations. We test this hypothesis, using a sample of matched-pair products.We find strong evidence to support the mirroring hypothesis. In all of the pairs we examine, the product developed by the loosely-coupled organization is significantly more modular than the product from the tightly-coupled organization. We measure modularity by capturing the level of coupling between a product's components. The magnitude of the differences is substantial—up to a factor of six, in terms of the potential for a design change in one component to propagate to others. Our results have significant managerial implications, in highlighting the impact of organizational design decisions on the technical structure of the artifacts that these organizations subsequently develop.     

A statistical comparison between inductive and traditional laboratories in college physical science

An inductive approach to the physical science laboratory yields better performance on a test for critical thinking in the physical sciences than does the traditional approach.     

Perceptions of the Freedom of Information Act (F.O.I.A.) and proposed amendments by the F.O.I.A. administrators

Recent efforts to amend the Freedom of Information Act (F.O.I.A.) suggest that the Act has caused widespread problems felt by its administrators. In order to test the validity of this suggestion, the authors surveyed F.O.I.A. administrators throughout the Federal government and report the findings from this survey here. These findings indicate that the administrators generally have positive perceptions of the Act, yet generally support specific proposed amendments to it.     

A Strategy for Developing a Common Metric in Item Response Theory When Parameter Posterior Distributions Are Known

Growing interest in fully Bayesian item response models begs the question: To what extent can model parameter posterior draws enhance existing practices? One practice that has traditionally relied on model parameter point estimates but may be improved by using posterior draws is the development of a common metric for two independently calibrated test forms. Before parameter estimates from independently calibrated forms can be compared, at least one form's estimates must be adjusted such that both forms share a common metric. Because this adjustment is estimated, there is a propagation of error effect when it is applied. This effect is typically ignored, which leads to overconfidence in the adjusted estimates; yet, when model parameter posterior draws are available, it may be accounted for with a simple sampling strategy. In this paper, it is shown using simulated data that the proposed sampling strategy results in adjusted posteriors with superior coverage properties than those obtained using traditional point‐estimate‐based methods.     

Measuring the unmeasurable: a country's non-R&D expenditure on product and service innovation

Knowledge about non-R&D innovation expenditure, such as patenting and licensing, design, trial production, tooling-up, manpower training, market research and investment in fixed assets, is extremely sparse and questions about the latter were very poorly answered in the recent Community Innovation Survey (CIS). Using information regarding the quality of replies, we reach a tentative national estimate of 1992 innovation expenditure for all manufacturing and service industries in the Netherlands. Expenditure on product-related R&D represents about one quarter of total product (and service) innovation expenditure. Roughly half of the latter consists of investment in fixed assets, the latter being more important in services than in manufacturing.     

Equity in higher education and graduate labour market outcomes in Australia

The rate of higher education participation in Australia has increased over the past decade for individuals from disadvantaged backgrounds. This study contributes to the knowledge on the outcomes of disadvantaged individuals who complete higher education by looking at the labour market outcomes of university graduates from equity groups. The number of Indigenous graduates and graduates with disabilities was found to be very low, suggesting that more needs to be done to improve higher education completion for these two groups. The labour market outcomes for other equity groups are mixed, with those from low socio-economic status backgrounds and regional and remote Australia performing well in the labour market, while graduates from non-English-speaking backgrounds and female graduates in science, technology, engineering and mathematics fields experience substantial disadvantage in the labour market. The findings suggest that selection processes prior to the graduates’ entry into the labour market are important.