This volume applies capability-architecture-performance (CAP) approach of industrial analysis to the evolution of the automobile industry and the strategies of its leading manufacturing firms between the late 19th century and the early 21st century.

Purpose – The purpose of this exploratory paper is to analyze how complexity of an artifact affects designing processes of its mechanical, electric, and software sub‐systems. Design/methodology/approach – Based on existing empirical research and frameworks of axiomatic design, product...

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine how the Japanese firms who make customized goods respond to supply chain failure caused by natural disaster, and shows the process and problem to build virtual dual sourcing with relation to product/process architecture....

Purpose – This study aims to describe how a work team adapted to its fluctuated and severe environment by changing from “lean” to “over-lean” mode. To do this, the author investigated the relations among productivity, the vertical division of labor, and group leaders' behavior in a...

In view of the unprecedented devastation of the Great East Japan Earthquake (GEJE), the psychological overreaction tends to emphasize the safety aspects at the expense of the basic principle of designing industrial supply chains that achieve competitiveness and robustness simultaneously....

Annabelle Gawer presents cutting-edge contributions from 24 top international scholars from 19 universities across Europe, the USA and Asia, from the disciplines of strategy, economics, innovation, organization studies and knowledge management. The novel insights assembled in this volume...