David J. Teece

Bio: David J. Teece is an academic researcher from University of California, Berkeley. The author has contributed to research in topics: Dynamic capabilities & Multinational corporation. The author has an hindex of 89, co-authored 312 publications receiving 93195 citations. Previous affiliations of David J. Teece include Yale University & University of Michigan.

The structural reshaping of globalization: Implications for strategic sectors, profiting from innovation, and the multinational enterprise

Abstract: The rapid reshaping of the global economic order requires fundamental shifts in international business scholarship and management practice. New forms of protectionist policies, new types of internationalization motives, and new tools of techno-nationalism may lead to what we call “bifurcated governance” at the macro-level and “value chain decoupling” at the micro-level. As a result, innovation networks will require novel reconfigurations. We examine the emerging constraints on multinational enterprises, imposed by a bifurcated world order. We also discuss how the dynamic capabilities framework can guide scholars and managers alike to achieve new forms of evolutionary fitness.

A capability theory of the firm: an economics and (Strategic) management perspective

Abstract: The business enterprise is the prime institution in economic development and growth; yet, until recently, mainstream economics has mostly treated firms as homogeneous black boxes managed by untrust...

Technological Innovation and the Theory of the Firm: The Role of Enterprise-Level Knowledge, Complementarities, and (Dynamic) Capabilities

Abstract: The firm is the central actor for the effectuation of innovation and technological change. The large industrial laboratories of the previous century have given way to more organizationally and geographically diffuse sources of technology, placing even greater emphasis on the coordination skills of managers. Dynamic capabilities are the skills, procedures, organizational structures, and decision rules that firms utilize to create and capture value. Managers must be able to sense opportunities, craft a business model to capitalize on them, and reconfigure their organizations, and sometimes their industries, as the business environment and technology shift. The key employees in this regard are experts (literati and numerati), whose management requires limited hierarchy, flexible teams, and performance-based incentives. To encompass these realities, the theory of the firm needs to be augmented to account for opportunity as well as opportunism, coordination beyond the boundaries of the firm as well as within it, variations in the level of capability across firms, and the frequent superiority of the firm over markets for the creation, transfer, and protection of intangible assets. Complementarities and cospecialization are advanced as two emerging concepts of particular relevance to a theory of the innovating enterprise earning above-normal returns.

Towards a capability theory of (innovating) firms: implications for management and policy

Abstract: Author(s): Teece, DJ | Abstract: Business enterprises lie at the core of ecosystems that drive economic development and growth in market economies; yet, until recently, mainstream economics has mostly treated firms like homogeneous black boxes run by opportunistic managers. The field of strategic management has developed a more nuanced approach to the understanding of how firms are created, organized and grow, how they innovate and compete and how managers manage. One of the leading paradigms in the field is the dynamic capabilities framework. In this paper, contrasts and complementarities are drawn between dynamic capabilities and economic theories of the firm, including transaction cost economics and agency theory. Connections to the Cambridge school are highlighted, including the duality between Keynes's 'animal spirits' and the dynamic capabilities entrepreneurial owner/manager. Leibenstein's x-inefficiency is juxtaposed here with d-ineffectiveness. Knowledge-based theories of the firm consistent with Cambridge conventions emerge. Intellectual exchange between strategic management and economics is encouraged to help improve the intuition behind models of firms and the economy.

Dynamic capabilities and strategic management

Abstract: The dynamic capabilities framework analyzes the sources and methods of wealth creation and capture by private enterprise firms operating in environments of rapid technological change. The competitive advantage of firms is seen as resting on distinctive processes (ways of coordinating and combining), shaped by the firm's (specific) asset positions (such as the firm's portfolio of difftcult-to- trade knowledge assets and complementary assets), and the evolution path(s) it has aflopted or inherited. The importance of path dependencies is amplified where conditions of increasing retums exist. Whether and how a firm's competitive advantage is eroded depends on the stability of market demand, and the ease of replicability (expanding intemally) and imitatability (replication by competitors). If correct, the framework suggests that private wealth creation in regimes of rapid technological change depends in large measure on honing intemal technological, organizational, and managerial processes inside the firm. In short, identifying new opportunities and organizing effectively and efficiently to embrace them are generally more fundamental to private wealth creation than is strategizing, if by strategizing one means engaging in business conduct that keeps competitors off balance, raises rival's costs, and excludes new entrants. © 1997 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Dynamic capabilities, what are they?

Abstract: This paper focuses on dynamic capabilities and, more generally, the resource-based view of the firm. We argue that dynamic capabilities are a set of specific and identifiable processes such as product development, strategic decision making, and alliancing. They are neither vague nor tautological. Although dynamic capabilities are idiosyncratic in their details and path dependent in their emergence, they have significant commonalities across firms (popularly termed ‘best practice’). This suggests that they are more homogeneous, fungible, equifinal, and substitutable than is usually assumed. In moderately dynamic markets, dynamic capabilities resemble the traditional conception of routines. They are detailed, analytic, stable processes with predictable outcomes. In contrast, in high-velocity markets, they are simple, highly experiential and fragile processes with unpredictable outcomes. Finally, well-known learning mechanisms guide the evolution of dynamic capabilities. In moderately dynamic markets, the evolutionary emphasis is on variation. In high-velocity markets, it is on selection. At the level of RBV, we conclude that traditional RBV misidentifies the locus of long-term competitive advantage in dynamic markets, overemphasizes the strategic logic of leverage, and reaches a boundary condition in high-velocity markets. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Evolving to a New Dominant Logic for Marketing

Abstract: Marketing inherited a model of exchange from economics, which had a dominant logic based on the exchange of “goods,” which usually are manufactured output The dominant logic focused on tangible resources, embedded value, and transactions Over the past several decades, new perspectives have emerged that have a revised logic focused on intangible resources, the cocreation of value, and relationships The authors believe that the new perspectives are converging to form a new dominant logic for marketing, one in which service provision rather than goods is fundamental to economic exchange The authors explore this evolving logic and the corresponding shift in perspective for marketing scholars, marketing practitioners, and marketing educators

Toward a Knowledge-Based Theory of the Firm

Abstract: Given assumptions about the characteristics of knowledge and the knowledge requirements of production, the firm is conceptualized as an institution for integrating knowledge. The primary contribution of the paper is in exploring the coordination mechanisms through which firms integrate the specialist knowledge of their members. In contrast to earlier literature, knowledge is viewed as residing within the individual, and the primary role of the organization is knowledge application rather than knowledge creation. The resulting theory has implications for the basis of organizational capability, the principles of organization design (in particular, the analysis of hierarchy and the distribution of decision-making authority), and the determinants of the horizontal and vertical boundaries of the firm. More generally, the knowledge-based approach sheds new light upon current organizational innovations and trends and has far-reaching implications for management practice.

The Relational View: Cooperative Strategy and Sources of Interorganizational Competitive Advantage

Abstract: In this article we offer a view that suggests that a firm's critical resources may span firm boundaries and may be embedded in interfirm resources and routines. We argue that an increasingly important unit of analysis for understanding competitive advantage is the relationship between firms and identify four potential sources of interorganizational competitive advantage: (1) relation-specific assets, (2) knowledge-sharing routines, (3) complementary resources/capabilities, and (4) effective governance. We examine each of these potential sources of rent in detail, identifying key subprocesses, and also discuss the isolating mechanisms that serve to preserve relational rents. Finally, we discuss how the relational view may offer normative prescriptions for firm-level strategies that contradict the prescriptions offered by those with a resource-based view or industry structure view.