The Business of Systems Integration

Professor Andrea Prencipe is Research Fellow at the Science and Technology Policy Research (SPRU), University of Sussex and Associate Professor of Management of Enterprises at University G. d'Annunzio, Pescara, Italy. His research interests include co-ordination and division of labour in high technology industries, organizational and network capabilities in complex systems industries, organisational learning and organisational memory in project-based contexts. He has published in journals such as Administrative Science Quarterly, Industrial and Corporate Change, Journal of Management and Governance, and Research Policy.Dr Andrew Davies is Senior Research Fellow at the Science and Technology Policy Research (SPRU), University of Sussex, and Deputy Director of the Complex Product Systems (CoPS) Innovation Centre at SPRU. His research focuses on firm strategy, capabilities and innovation management across different capital goods sectors within the CoPS Innovation Centre. His book Telecommunications and Politics (Routledge, 1994) is used in post-graduate teaching programmes in the US, Europe and Japan. He is currently responsible for a three-year research project funded within the Systems Integration Initiative of UK's Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, and was awarded a prestigious Teaching Excellence Scholarship to offer courses on 'Managing Innovation in CoPS' to doctoral students in several leading Swedish Universities. He has published extensively on policy, firm strategy, innovation management and organisational capabilities.Professor Michael Hobday is Director of the Complex Product Systems (CoPS) Innovation Centre at the Science and Technology Policy Research (SPRU), University of Sussex. His research focuses on innovation management in CoPS, and East and South Asian innovation studies. His book Innovation in East Asia (Edward Elgar, 1995) was the first comprehensive analysis of East Asian firm innovation strategies, including detailed case studies of companies from Korea, Taiwan, Singapore and Hong Kong. He has produced more than 100 publications, including three books, numerous articles on technology management, and major consultancy reports on industrial innovation, competitiveness and project evaluation.

• Preface ; 1. Introduction ; PART I: THE HISTORY OF SYSTEMS INTEGRATION ; 2. Inventing Systems Integration ; 3. Systems Integration and the Social Solution of Technical Problems in Complex Systems ; 4. Integrating Electrical Power Systems: From Individual to Organizational Capabilities ; 5. Specialization and Systems Integration: Where Manufacture and Services Still Meet ; PART II: THEORETICAL AND CONCEPTUAL PERSPECTIVES ON SYSTEMS INTEGRATION ; 6. The Economics of Systems Integration: Towards an Evolutionary Interpretation ; 7. Corporate Strategy and Systems Integration Capabilities: Managing Networks in Complex Systems Industries ; 8. The Role of Technical Standard in Coordinating the Division of Labour in Complex Systems Industries ; 9. The Cognitive Basis of System Integration: Redundancy of Context Generating Knowledge ; 10. Towards a Dynamics of Modularity: A Cyclical Model of Technical Advance ; PART III: COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE AND SYSTEMS INTEGRATION ; 11. The Geography of Systems Integration ; 12. Modularity and Outsourcing: The Nature of Co-Evolution of Product Architecture and Organization Architecture in the Global Automotive Industry ; 13. Modularization in the Car Industry: Inter-Linked Multiple Hierarchies of Product, Production, and Supplier Systems ; 14. Systems Integration in the US Defence Industry: Who Does It and Why Is It Important? ; 15. Changing Boundaries of Innovation Systems: Linking Market Demand and Use ; 16. Integrated Solutions: The Changing Business of Systems Integration

Systems integration has become a core strategic capability for businesses seeking competitive advantage in technologically complex, globalized industries. The editors of this volume have gathered together the best thinking from around the world on this vital subject. The result is an outstanding, pathbreaking book, filled with valuable insights for practitioners and researchers alike.