Much of the contemporary modularity literature subscribes to the idea that increased product modularity is associated with advantageous increase in organizational modularity. Known as the “mirroring hypothesis,” this proposed relationship states that the structure of a product development organization and the architecture of the product being developed would “mirror” each other. This correspondence suggests that product modularity can be a substitute for overt organizational coordination mechanisms, thereby increasing the efficiency of product development. However, empirical research to date provides inconsistent support for the hypothesis and the extant literature has yet to converge on a systematic explanation for the inconsistent findings. Moreover, important conceptual inconsistencies still remain in the extant literature, which impede cumulative knowledge development. As the first step toward reconciliation, this conceptual paper puts forth a contingent model of mirroring between product and organization, based on the systematic examination of the requisite architectural knowledge that enables product and organizational modularity. The resulting contingent model clearly articulates the knowledge prerequisite of mirroring and its underpinning causal mechanism. Based on the contingent model, a set of propositions are derived to explain and predict when the mirroring relationship will hold and when it will not. This paper thus contributes to the literature by helping to resolve persistent conceptual inconsistencies and reconcile conflicting empirical findings. In addition, explicating the knowledge prerequisite for mirroring places boundary conditions on product modularity as an effective substitute for overt exercise of managerial coordination, which helps us gain a deeper understanding of modularity as a design strategy and how complex innovations can be organized, and provides a basis for more nuanced prescriptions for practitioners to assess the relationships between their product and organization design.

中文翻译：

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走向产品与组织之间镜像的偶然模型：知识管理的观点

许多当代的模块化文献都赞同这样的想法，即产品模块化的提高与组织模块化的有利增长有关。这种提议的关系被称为“镜像假设”，指出产品开发组织的结构和正在开发的产品的体系结构将相互“镜像”。这种对应关系表明，产品模块化可以替代公开的组织协调机制，从而提高产品开发的效率。然而，迄今为止的实证研究为该假设提供了不一致的支持，并且现有文献尚未收敛于对不一致发现的系统解释。此外，现有文献中仍然存在重要的概念不一致之处，这阻碍了累积知识的发展。作为实现和解的第一步，本概念文件基于对实现产品和组织模块化的必要架构知识的系统检查，提出了一种在产品和组织之间进行镜像的偶然模型。由此产生的偶然模型清楚地阐明了镜像的知识先决条件及其基础的因果机制。基于或有模型，导出了一组命题来解释和预测镜像关系何时成立以及何时不成立。因此，本文通过帮助解决持久的概念不一致和调和矛盾的经验发现，为文献做出了贡献。此外，