In approaching the issues of organisational changes and work patterns on the shop floor, the economic literature has always concentrated on the assembly line. This research shifts the focus from the assembly line to the processing stages. Thus light could be shed on the new paradigmatic role played by men in a manufacturing world reshaped by the widespread adoption of computer-based automation and by the related codification of technological knowledge. Moreover, it is shown that in the post-Fordist, increasingly vertically disintegrated and networked environment the importance of economies of scale and expecially of scope re-emerges. Increasing returns derive from the shift of costs from variable to fixed, connected to the use of increasingly complex equipment and to the codification of technological knowledge. Finally, in the sectors where innovation, being mainly driven by cost concerns, is embodied in plant and equipment, the release from the dependence on the tacit knowledge of skilled workers, enabled by the codification of know-how and its translation into software, has made human capital requirement very low and entry by new-comers easy.
Codification of technological knowledge, firm boundaries and "cognitive" barriers to entry
BALCONI, MARGHERITA
1999-01-01
Abstract
In approaching the issues of organisational changes and work patterns on the shop floor, the economic literature has always concentrated on the assembly line. This research shifts the focus from the assembly line to the processing stages. Thus light could be shed on the new paradigmatic role played by men in a manufacturing world reshaped by the widespread adoption of computer-based automation and by the related codification of technological knowledge. Moreover, it is shown that in the post-Fordist, increasingly vertically disintegrated and networked environment the importance of economies of scale and expecially of scope re-emerges. Increasing returns derive from the shift of costs from variable to fixed, connected to the use of increasingly complex equipment and to the codification of technological knowledge. Finally, in the sectors where innovation, being mainly driven by cost concerns, is embodied in plant and equipment, the release from the dependence on the tacit knowledge of skilled workers, enabled by the codification of know-how and its translation into software, has made human capital requirement very low and entry by new-comers easy.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
