When does the mirror get misted? How the rate of component change and product complexity impact the mirroring hypothesis

The mirroring hypothesis – the assumed architectural mapping between firms’ strategic choices of product architecture and firm architecture, and between firms’ architectural choices and the industry structures – is a central theme within modularity theory. Empirical support for this hypothesis across numerous studies is significant, but mixed – suggesting the need to focus less upon whether the hypothesis holds and more upon the conditions under which it holds. As part of this shift in focus, within this research we utilize an industrial economics perspective to develop a stylised product architecture typology and hypothesise how the combined effects of product architecture type, product complexity and the rate of product component change may be associated with phases of mirroring or misting. Our framework helps to reconcile some existing mixed evidence and provides the foundation for further empirical research.

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