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50PHOTO MAR | APRBY 2008CHRIS THE PENNSYLVANIA CRISMAN GAZETTE ALL BUSINESS David Teece describes himself as a “practicing business intellectual.” That’s not an oxymoron. By Samuel Hughes a sense, it all began with a note from In the late Ed Mansfield. At the time, David Teece G’73 Gr’75 was a graduate student at Penn, having come to Philadelphia from New Zealand to study international economics and industrial organization. That turned out to be the bailiwick of Mansfield, the economics pro- fessor who was internationally recognized for his systematic studies of industry. He had gotten his hands on a paper Teece had written on foreign direct investments, and apparently liked what he saw. “I got this note in my box, saying would I have lunch with Ed Mansfield,” recalls Teece, sitting in the lounge off the Faculty Club during a recent visit to campus. “No other faculty member had ever asked me to have lunch. He said that he was interested in my undergrad thesis and was interested in being my advisor.” Mansfield, Teece recalls, was something of a loner in the economics department, which was then dominated by such legends as Dr. Lawrence Klein Hon’06, now emeritus pro- fessor of economics, who would soon win a Nobel Prize for his work in developing the Wharton Econometric Forecasting Model. As Mansfield saw it, some of the theories that then held sway among economists didn’t always hold water in the fast-changing field of industrial research. “Ed openly displayed almost a disdain for modern economic theory because of the field’s infatuation with static analysis, and its abject failure to embrace the study of technology and technological change,” wrote THE PENNSYLVANIA GAZETTE MAR | APR 2008 51 ALL Teece in a 2005 article in the Journal of mer economics professor at Yale. “But is an international provider of expert Technology Transfer honoring Mansfield much of what he has done has been analysis, testimony, and consulting ser- and his contributions. While it was a structured outside of the boundaries of vices on a broad range of business top- “daunting task” to undertake research what was considered the appropriate ics. The Wall Street Journal described in an area where very little scholarly framework for theorizing about firms him as a “renowned expert on lots of exploration had been done, Mansfield’s in economics departments.” things and pioneer of a lucrative con- advice that it was “sometimes a little “Deep down, really what I am is a prac- sulting niche that has transformed busi- easier to receive recognition if you were ticing business intellectual, and that’s ness litigation” in a front-page article the first into a field” resonated. Besides, almost an oxymoron,” Teece says matter- last March; lucrative in this case means Teece added: “As a young graduate stu- of-factly. “Business intellectuals are not that he clears between $2 million and $3 dent, I wanted to believe that the hard taken seriously, either by intellectuals million a year for his own expert testi- problems of the world were solvable.” or business people.” mony and a cut of the action from the The professor and his graduate stu- dent learned together, as Mansfield sent Teece out into the field to gather data, “In economics, the death interview executives and managers of large corporations, and glean the hid- of bad theory seems to den costs of transferring technology from one country to another. Mansfield, take much longer,” says Teece. a strong statistician who preferred to “get the right data and a small sample, “I’ve always had one foot rather than having the wrong data and the universe,” favored a multi-disciplin- in the real world.” ary approach that was ahead of its time in the way it incorporated the often Press him a bit and he admits that he other experts, many of whom make their messy data of real-world industry. may be the exception that proves the living in the academy. “Mansfield ignited an interest in me in rule. He was named one of the world’s Through his expert testimony, he is technology and technology transfer,” says top 50 living business intellectuals by sometimes able to influence business- Teece, and that ignition would have deep the Accenture Institute for Strategic related law by debunking unsound eco- implications for the study of the business Change, and he is not above bringing nomic theories that have made their enterprise. “He gave me the courage to up the fact that he was the lead author way into the books. believe that there was a methodological on the most cited article in economics “David’s articles have actually been approach there, based on understanding and business worldwide for the decade cited by the U.S. Supreme Court,” said things at the enterprise level, which was of 1995-2005 (“Dynamic Capabilities Tom Campbell, dean of the Haas School, accepted in the academic world.” and Strategic Management,” in Strategic during a 2006 presentation. Noting that In the 33 years since he finished his Management Journal). He is also one of the Teece had been a “very important wit- Ph.D. dissertation on the costs of inter- top 10 most cited scholars for that decade. ness on behalf of Oracle when the gov- national technology transfer, Teece has His 1986 “Profiting from Technology ernment attempted to stop Oracle from gone on to achieve a rare level of suc- Innovation,” in Research Policy, is the most acquiring PeopleSoft,” Campbell pointed cess inside and outside the academy— widely cited business article in that jour- out that LECG was “unique in harnessing despite, or perhaps because of, what he nal’s history, and one that prompted the attributes of the Academy in an area calls his “lifelong battle with mainstream editors to issue a sort of Feschrift a few which was greatly in need of them, name- economics.”Currently the Tusher Chair in years ago celebrating it. ly the prestige of individual faculty with Global Business and professor of business His international background and his the nimbleness of a private company.” administration at the University of desire to be a good citizen of the world “I find that the academic training and California-Berkeley’s Haas School of prompted him to play a key role in found- familiarity with genres of research is Business, as well as director of Berkeley’s ing St. Petersburg State University’s extraordinarily valuable in helping me Institute of Management, Innovation and School of Management, the top business understand the complex reality that you Organization, his deep research into the school in Russia, which he helped start get to see up close in the context of litiga- ever-evolving nature of the business firm from scratch shortly after the collapse of tion,” says Teece. “And, moreover, if you has been highly influential—at least among the Soviet Union. (He currently chairs the can speak plain English, you do have a shot those outside of the economics orthodoxy. school’s International Academic Council, at distilling their complex reality down in a “David has done some of the most origi- and was presumably pleased with the sub- way that a jury can understand, too. nal, provocative, powerful work on the ject of its most recent international confer- “As a testifying expert, I frequently find theory of the firm of anybody that I know,” ence: “Dynamic Capabilities and Beyond.”) myself putting down bad theories,” he says Dr. Richard Nelson, the Blumenthal On the practicing side, the LECG (Law adds. “Some expert has assumed that the Professor of International and Public and Economics Consulting Group) Cor- world looks like some model that they’re Affairs at Columbia University, and a for- poration, which Teece co-founded in 1988, familiar with, but they haven’t looked 52 MAR | APR 2008 THE PENNSYLVANIA GAZETTE enough to discover that the world is bad theorists get control of resources in big picture, which may be one of his more nothing like the model.” a university, they can keep replicating outstanding traits,” Winter adds. “The “Professor Teece’s economic work was themselves. I’ve always had one foot in style is top-down. You don’t bury yourself so panoramic that he could be plugged the real world.” in details without orientation. On the con- into almost any industry dispute and Economists, especially those in the trary, you start with a conceptual orienta- presented as knowledgeable,” noted the academy, “are ordinarily concerned above tion and … drill down.” And for all the Journal. “He didn’t fluster under cross- all that their arguments be found persua- complexities inherent in Teece’s subject examination. And his New Zealand sive by other economists,” wrote Teece matter, he brings to bear “a set of intel- accent worked nicely on the witness and Sidney Winter (now the Deloitte & lectual heuristics that are very orienting stand; it made him sound erudite with- Touche Professor of Management at for a very wide range of problems.” out being pompous.” Penn, then a professor of economics and It is certainly true that Teece does not management at Yale), in a 1984 article “My academic research has been involved fluster easily. During the 1991 Oakland- titled “The Limits of Neoclassical Theory with trying to incorporate innovation into Berkeley firestorm, he and some friends in Management Education.” Since those the theory of a firm,” Teece is saying. “When ignored the “very persistent” evacuation economists “rarely suffer in their profes- you think about it, that is the quintessen- warnings of the police and stayed to fight sional lives the discomforts and anxieties tial issue that everyone in the world is the fire, brandishing hoses and saving of reliance on indispensable expertise interested in, but only a handful of schol- both his own house and his neighbor’s in operating from an alien conceptual frame- ars are touching it—because it’s inter- the process.