Exploring the black box of modularity in single business enterprise: A case study of giant KONE elevator corporation

Modularity has been proposed as a key principle for organizations to adapt to dynamic markets, but relatively little research has been conducted in studying modularity in single business enterprises. We try to fill this blank by using an in-depth case study of a large elevator manufacturer in China. By virtue of organigraph, we plot the organizational structure matrix of the case enterprise to illustrate modularity in organization. Our results show that specialization exists both in structure designing and interface specifying. Owing to codified architectural knowledge and specialized units taking charge of organization architecture, modular organizations can be good at modular innovation and architectural innovation.