Biography

David J. Teece is Professor of the Graduate School at the University of California, Berkeley. He has authored over thirty books and two hundred scholarly papers and has been cited more than 200,000 times, per Google Scholar. Dr. Teece has been ranked as the world’s most-cited scholar in the combined field of business and management in an analysis of science-wide author citations published in PLOS Biology, a peer-reviewed journal. Dr. Teece has received nine honorary doctorates and has been recognized by Royal Honors.

Dr. Teece pioneered the dynamic capabilities perspective, defined as “the ability to integrate, build, and reconfigure internal and external competencies to address rapidly changing environments.” According to Science Watch (November/December 2005), his paper (with Gary Pisano and Amy Shuen) “Dynamic Capabilities and Strategic Management” was the most cited paper in economics and business globally for the observed period 1995 to 2005.

Dr. Teece co-founded Berkeley Research Group, an expert services and consulting firm of economists and other professionals with expertise in domains ranging from higher education to corporate finance. Founded in 2010, BRG has more than forty offices and over 1,200 employees. Dr. Teece also founded the Law and Economics Consulting Group (LECG), where he acted as chairman and then vice-chairman.

Dr. Teece has a PhD in economics from the University of Pennsylvania and has held teaching and research positions at Stanford University and Oxford University. He has received honorary doctorates from the University of Canterbury, New Zealand; St. Petersburg State University, Russia (where he was instrumental in cofounding the Graduate School of Management); Copenhagen Business School, Denmark; Lappeentranta University of Technology, Finland; University of Calgary Haskayne School of Business, Canada; Kaunas University of Technology, Lithuania; EBS University of Business and Law, Germany; Edinburgh Business School, United Kingdom; and Keio University, Japan.

Other honors Dr. Teece has received include:

  • Keio University of Japan, Doctor of Business and Commerce, honoris causa (2023)

  • Clarivate Citation Laureate (2021)

  • Thinkers50 Hall of Fame (2020)

  • Citation of Excellence, Emerald Publishing (2017)

  • Named among Who’s Who Legal’s five “Most Highly Regarded Experts” in North America (2016)

  • Distinguished Fellow, New Zealand Association of Economist (2016)

  • Eminent Scholar Award, Academy of International Business (2013)

  • New Year Royal Honours, Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit (2013)

  • Herbert Simon Award (2011)

  • Winner of the Best Paper Prize Award of the Strategic Management Journal: “Dynamic Capabilities and Strategic Management” (2003)

  • Viipuri International Prize in Strategic (Technology) Management and Business Economics (2003)

  • On Accenture’s list of the world’s “Top 50 Business Intellectuals” (2002)

Dr. Teece has over thirty years of experience as an active consultant performing economic, business, and financial consulting services to businesses and governments around the world. He has worked on matters in industries ranging from music recording to semiconductors, automobiles, software, and petroleum, and has testified in both federal and state court, before Congress, and before the Federal Trade Commission, as well as in several international jurisdictions.

Dr. Teece is the co-editor of Palgrave Encyclopedia of Strategic Management and Industrial & Corporate Change (Oxford University Press). In addition, Dr. Teece is among the “A-List of Management Academics 2011,” an honorary group of thirty accomplished and distinguished US business professors. In 2020, Dr. Teece was rated no. 1 worldwide in management by London-based Clarivate; in 2021, he was given “Clarivate Laureate” status in economics (for innovation, entrepreneurship, and competition) based on the citations he has received in the scientific literature. Also in 2020, he was saluted as a "Distinguished Management Thinker" by Thinkers50.

His other significant entrepreneurial ventures include Mt. Beautiful Vineyards and Farms in the Cheviot Hills of North Canterbury, on New Zealand’s South Island; Vomo Island Resort in the Fiji Islands; Pilatus Capital, a venture capital firm with a technology focus; and numerous student housing projects in the Berkeley, California, community.

View Dr. Teece’s curriculum vitae.