The Value, Costs and Organizational Consequences of Modularity

An earlier verion of this talk was prepared as the keynote address for the Opening Conference of the Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI), “Modularity—Impacts to Japan’s Industry,” Tokyo, Japan, July 12-13, 2001. Our thanks to the sponsors and participants of the conference, especially Masahiko Aoki and Sozaburo Okamatsu, Nobuo Ikeda, Takahiro Fujimoto, Hiroyuki Chuma, Jiro Kokuryo, Noriyuki Yanagawa, Nobuo Okubo, Shuzo Fujimura, Hiroshi Hashimoto, Hiroshi Kuwahara, and Keiichi Enoki for extremely stimulating discussion and pertinent critiques.