Chapter Teece 2016
Corbel, P. « David J. Teece – Entre intégration et reconfiguration », in T. Burger-Helmchen, C. Hussler and P. Cohendet, Les grands auteurs en management de l’innovation et de la créativité, éditions EMS, January 2016, pp. 229-243
Introduction:
Few authors appear simultaneously in two books in the "Grands auteurs" collection. But David J. Teece is a special case. He is undoubtedly one of the contemporary researchers who has contributed most to structuring the field of strategy (Mothe, 2007). Ranked in 2005 by Science Watch as one of the ten most cited authors in economics and management, his influence is also considerable in the field of innovation management. A quick glance at the number of citations of his articles in Google Scholar gives you an idea of the extent of his influence: his work is cited more than 80,000 times! But beyond the figures, he has contributed concepts that have helped to structure the thinking of many researchers interested in the economics and management of innovation.
The purpose of this chapter is to present more specifically his contributions to this field of research. It is designed to be read independently of the chapter on the major authors in strategy, but we will pass very quickly over everything that is not directly linked to innovation, and we will therefore refer the reader to the chapter by Caroline Mothe (2007) for more substantial developments on his contributions to questions of firm integration and to the theory of the firm.
We begin by looking back at some of the elements in his career that have had an influence on his work. We also show that many of the "ingredients" that will make David Teece's research unique are already present in his doctoral thesis. We then develop the "profiting from innovation" model, which revolutionised economists' view of innovation and brought Teece considerably closer to the concerns of strategy specialists. This model strongly influenced his work on technological alliances and led him quite naturally to the question of intellectual property rights. Finally, we will end this chapter with a parallel between the concept of dynamic capabilities and his own way of conducting research.