| Complexity
and Organizational Structure by Emily F. Breuner |
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| Acknowledgments | |
| I would like to acknowledge Professor Thomas Malone for introducing me and the other students on this structured thesis project to many ideas of what life might be like in the twenty-first century?both in terms of our professional and personal lives. I must also thank him for the opportunity to work not only with the structured thesis project at the Center for Coordination Science, but on this part of the project in particular. This research has profoundly impacted the way I look at the world, and together with my interaction with Professor Malone and there rest of the people at the Center for Coordination Science, the research has been the source of my most satisfying academic experiences during my Master's education at the MIT Sloan School. |  |
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I would also like to thank Charles Osborn, a research scientist at the Center for Coordination Science, for spending many hours with me to help understand all the fascinating data that I had collected for the project, and for knowing all the relevant organizational theory! |
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I also must acknowledge Mitch Kapor and the subject (MAS 962: The Political Economy of the Digital Infrastructure) he taught in the Spring of 1995 for helping me shape many of the ideas in this thesis. His insight into the Internet and its unique context has been important in the formation of many of my ideas, and I am grateful to have had the exposure to his vast knowledge. |
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This project would not have been half as much fun or as interesting if I had not had the opportunity to collaborate with Tor Jacob Ramsøy, a Sloan Master's student in the Management of Technology program and also a participant in the structured thesis project. His infectious enthusiasm and knowledge of the Internet made this project much more valuable both as research and as a learning experience. Similarly the other students that participated in the project contributed significantly to its value. In many cases, they helped me understand aspects of my own research in class discussions, and I have cited them where appropriate. |
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Finally, I must thank all the people I interviewed, but no one more so than Dee W. Hock, the first CEO of the National BankAmericard (later Visa International), for his generous time and his willingness to share his incredible insight with me. While the ideas in this thesis (many of them his) may seem novel to some, he has been aware of them for some time; moreover, he explicitly implemented them over twenty-five years ago. It is my hope that I have done a respectable job of capturing his genius here. I look forward to his forthcoming book on this subject. |
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