Silence Inside Systems: Roots and Generativity Consequences
Authors: Tiwana, Amrit; Safadi, Hani
Journal: Information Systems Research (2026)
<jats:p>Modern information technology (IT) systems evolve less through visible coordination and more through subtle behavioral patterns—most notably, silence: the relative absence of interaction internally. We conceptualize silence as a dynamic system-wide behavior distinct from architecture. This quietness is a powerful design trait. Our study of nearly 1,400 systems over 25 years shows that when modules “talk” less, developers focus more, accelerating evolutionary innovation. Silent systems produce cleaner, more maintainable code and are 600 times more likely to be extended by others. This matters now more than ever. As systems grow larger and more entangled, brittleness has become a pressing problem; small tweaks routinely trigger large failures. Brute-force solutions, like scaling compute power, are reaching physical and economic limits. Silence is an architectural antidote; by reducing internal dependencies, it lets teams adapt swiftly, avoid technical debt spirals, and better steward artificial intelligence-driven and autonomous systems. For practitioners and policymakers, this paper urges a rethink of how we build and sustain IT systems. Rather than endlessly scaling resour…