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WP 07-02

Sylvain Lenfle, Carliss Baldwin. From Manufacturing to Design: An Essay on the Work of Kim B. Clark

Keywords: Product Development, Design Theory, Industry Evolution.

Abstract:

The interdisciplinary research of economist Kim Clark, former dean of Harvard Business School and now President of Brigham Young University-Idaho, occupies a unique place in management scholarship. This paper reviews his research contributions over almost thirty years. Throughout his career, Clark has brought fresh insights to old questions and opened up new territories of research. He helped to replace Frederick Taylor’s scientific management principles with the dynamic concepts of continual learning and learning organizations. He showed how product development could be actively managed for greater efficiency and effectiveness. He developed a theory of the embedding of knowledge in organizations, which he used to explain why established firms often fail in the face of “seemingly minor innovations.” He showed how changes in the modular structure of products and processes could bring about fundamental change in the structure of industries. Finally, in Clark’s later works, he built bridges from design theory to user innovation, transaction- and knowledge-based theories of the firm, and strategy.

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