Doing more by knowing less. The evolution of the division of innovative labour in software creation

• To conceptualize the coevolution of the division of innovative labour and knowledge growth, this chapter analyses the evolution of mechanisms for economizing cognition in software development processes. The mechanisms are called abstraction mechanisms and they determine what representations, called abstractions, developers can create and use when writing software. Over time, complementary advances in theoretical knowledge, instrumentation and computational capacity have led to an expansion of the types of abstraction mechanisms in use. As a consequence, software has become composed of a large, interrelated network structure of abstractions created by a large number of developers. As the network structure expands, and becomes more fine-grained, the ratio between developers’ knowledge and the total knowledge they are able to draw upon in their development work becomes lower. They are thus able to do more by knowing less in relative terms. We suggest that the findings have a general significance for understanding industrial transformation from a knowledge perspective by furthering our understanding of changes in the division of inventive labour across and within firms.

Subject headings

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Ekonomi och näringsliv (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Economics and Business (hsv//eng)

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Sociologi -- Sociologi (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Sociology -- Sociology (hsv//eng)

Publication and Content Type

vet (subject category)

kap (subject category)