Dorothy Leonard*, the William J. Abernathy Professor of Business Administration Emerita, joined the Harvard faculty in 1983 after teaching for three years at the Sloan School of Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She has taught MBA courses in managerial leadership, knowledge management, new product and process design, technology strategy and innovation management. At Harvard, M.I.T., and for corporations such as Hewlett-Packard, AT&T, and 3M, Professor Leonard has conducted executive courses on a wide range of innovation-related topics such as cross-functional coordination during new product development, technology transfer and knowledge management. She has initiated and served as faculty chair for executive education programs such as Leveraging Knowledge for the 21st Century, Leading Product Development, and Enhancing Corporate Creativity. She also served as a Director of Research for the Harvard Business School and Director of Research and Knowledge Programs for Harvard Business School's non-profit organization, HBS Interactive.
Professor Leonard's major research interests and consulting expertise relate to managing knowledge for innovation and stimulating creativity in group settings. She has consulted with and taught about these topics for governments (e.g., Sweden, Jamaica) and major corporations (e.g., IBM, Kodak). She served on the corporate Board of Directors for American Management Systems for twelve years and for Guy Gannett Communications for three years--in both cases until the company was merged or acquired.
Her numerous writings appear in academic journals (e.g., "Core Capabilities and Core Rigidities in New Product Development" awarded Best Paper for sustained impact on the profession by Strategic Management Journal), practitioner journals (e.g., "Make Yourself an Expert" in Harvard Business Review) and books on technology management (e.g., "Guiding Visions" in The Perpetual Enterprise Machine). In addition, Professor Leonard has written dozens of field-based cases used in business school classrooms around the world. Her book, Wellsprings of Knowledge: Building and Sustaining the Sources of Innovation, was published in hardback in 1995 by Harvard Business School Publishing, reissued in paperback in 1998, and has been translated into numerous languages. Professor Leonard's book, When Sparks Fly: Igniting Group Creativity, (co-authored with Walter Swap) was published September, 1999 by Harvard Business School Press. Also widely translated, it has been reissued in paperback in 2005 and was awarded Best Book on Creativity by the European Association for Creativity and Innovation. Her book Deep Smarts: How to Cultivate and Transfer Enduring Business Wisdom, (co-authored with Walter Swap) was published in January, 2005. Her latest book (co-authored with Walter Swap and Gavin Barton) is: Critical Knowledge Transfer: Tools for Managing Your Company’s Deep Smarts, published in 2014 by Harvard Business Review Press. Before obtaining her Ph.D. from Stanford University, she worked in Southeast Asia for ten years.
This book pulls together for the first time works on knowledge and innovation, including the implementation of new processes and products, written by Dorothy A. Leonard over more than two decades. It consists of articles from journals in diverse fields (e.g. the award-winning article on Core Capabilities and Core Rigidities) and book chapters that cover the innovation process, from its inception in peoples' heads to its implementation. An underlying theme running throughout the book is managing the flow of knowledge that propels innovation—especially tacit knowledge. Such knowledge is difficult to transfer or embody in a new product, process or service. However, it is not only essential but often comprises the most valuable component in the innovation. The opening chapter, written expressly for this volume, probes the connections between tacit knowledge, creativity and innovation.
When highly skilled subject matter experts, engineers, and managers leave their organizations, they take with them years of hard-earned, experience-based knowledge—much of it undocumented and irreplaceable. Organizations can thereby lose a good part of their competitive advantage. The tsunami of "boomer" retirements has created the most visible, urgent need to transfer such knowledge to the next generation. But there is also an ongoing torrent of acquisitions, layoffs, and successions—not to mention commonplace promotions and transfers—all of which involve the loss of essential expertise.
Leonard, Dorothy, and Walter Swap. When Sparks Fly: Harnessing the Power of Group Creativity. Paperback ed. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press, 2005.
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Swap, Walter C., Dorothy A. Leonard, Mary Shields, and Lisa Abrams. "Using Mentoring and Storytelling to Transfer Knowledge in the Workplace." Journal of Management Information Systems 18, no. 1 (summer 2001).
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Leonard, D. A., and S. Sensiper. "The Role of Tacit Knowledge in Group Innovation."California Management Review 40, no. 3 (spring 1998): 112–132. (Reprint #CMR111.) (Reprinted with new introduction in Strategic Management of Intellectual Capital and Organizational Knowledge, eds. C. W. Choo and N. Bontis. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002.)
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Both ordinary and dynamic capabilities depend upon the deep smarts, i.e., business-critical, experience-based knowledge, held in the heads of an organization’s top talent. This chapter examines the links between individual and organizational capabilities and presents the theory and research on deep smarts. The six most universally found characteristics of this particular kind of expertise are deep domain knowledge, pattern recognition–based decision making, system perspective, context awareness, diagnostic acuity, and skilled networking. Such deep smarts, as illustrated through extensive examples of entrepreneurs, are operationalized differently in highly volatile environments than in relatively stable ones. Although deep smarts are based on experience, they are skills and abilities rather than static knowledge reservoirs. Therefore, they are particularly essential to dynamic capabilities and to innovation.
Leonard, Dorothy A. "Tacit Knowledge, Unarticulated Needs, and Empathic Design in New Product Development." Chap. 9 in Knowledge Management Classic and Contemporary Works, edited by Mark T. Maybury, Daryl Morey, and Bhavani M. Thuraisingham, 223–237. Boston: MIT Press, 2001.
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Leonard, D. A. "Putting Your Company's Whole Brain to Work." In Delivering Results: A New Mandate for Human Resource Professionals. Edited by David Ulrich.Harvard Business Review Book Series. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press, 1998.
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Leonard, D. A. "How to Integrate Work and Deepen Expertise." In The Work of Teams, edited by Jon R. Katzenbach. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press, 1998.
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Leonard, Dorothy A., P. A. Brands, Amy Edmondson, and Justine Fenwick. "Virtual Teams: Using Communications Technology to Manage Geographically Dispersed Development Groups." In Sense and Respond: Capturing Value in the Network Era, edited by Stephen P. Bradley and Richard L. Nolan, 285–98. Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 1998.
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Leonard, D. A. "Putting Your Company's Whole Brain to Work." In Harvard Business Review on Knowledge Management. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press, 1998.
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Leonard, D. A., and C. Gomes-Casseres. "Alliance Clusters in Multimedia: Safety Net or Entanglement?" In Competing in the Age of Digital Convergence, edited by D. B. Yoffie. Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 1997.
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Leonard, D. A., and J. Doyle. "Commercial Technology: Imaginative Understanding of User Needs." In Engines of Innovation: U.S. Industrial Research at the End of an Era, edited by Richard S. Rosenbloom and William J. Spencer. Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 1996.
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Leonard-Barton, D. A. "Modes of Technology Transfer." In Technology Management and Corporate Strategies: A Tricontinental Perspective, edited by G. Pogorel and J. Allouche. Elsevier, 1995.
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Leonard, D. A., H. K. Bowen, K. B. Clark, C. Holloway, and S. C. Wheelwright. "How to Integrate Work and Deepen Expertise." In The Product Development Challenge: Competing Through Speed, Quality, and Creativity, edited by K. B. Clark and S. C. Wheelwright. Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 1995.
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Leonard-Barton, D. A., and W. Smith. "Developing New Process Capabilities." In Managing Technology and Innovation, edited by W. Souder and J.D. Sherman. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1994.
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Leonard-Barton, D. A. "The Intra-organizational Environment." In Technology Transfer: A Communication Perspective, edited by F. Williams and D. Gibson. Newbury Park, CA: Sage Publications, 1990.
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Leonard-Barton, D. A. "Implementing New Production Technologies: Exercises in Corporate Learning." In Managing Complexity in High Technology Organizations, edited by M. A. Von Glinow and S. Mohrman, 160–87. New York: Oxford University Press, 1990.
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Leonard-Barton, D. A., and J. Gogan. "Marketing Advanced Manufacturing Processes." In Implementing Advanced Technology, edited by D. Davis. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1986.
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Leonard, D. A. "Diffusion of Energy Conservation Technologies." In Consumers and Energy Conservation: International Perspectives on Research and Policy Options, edited by J. Claxton. New York: Praeger, 1981.
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Leonard, D. A. "The Diffusion of Residential Solar Equipment in California." In Marketing Solar Energy Innovations, edited by A. Shama. New York: Praeger, 1981.
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Leonard, Dorothy, and Christopher Myers. "Transferring Knowledge Between Projects at NASA JPL (A) and (B)." Harvard Business School Teaching Note 917-406, September 2016. (Revised July 2017.)
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At the conclusion of the (A) case, Jennifer Trosper needed to decide whether or not to throw her support behind the training and outreach represented by the ROV-E program to build small rovers like the ones used on the surface of Mars by NASA JPL. The (B) case describes her decision and provides further information on her subsequent efforts made after the initial decision.
The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a federally funded research institution within NASA, the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration, has played a large role in many space and planetary explorations, particularly to the planet Mars. As a project-based organization, JPL has many opportunities to learn between successive missions, but there are many cultural, structural and incentive-based challenges to the development and exchange of experience-based knowledge.
The main case decision point focuses on one such challenge in particular: how to instill in junior engineers the practice-based experience of the seniors. Jennifer Trosper, project manager for the Mars 2020 mission, is trying to decide whether or not to seek funding for a hands-on training program building miniature, educational versions of a Mars surface vehicle. However, the cases address a number of other managerial decisions, such as determining the balance between innovation and replication of prior solutions, given that Trosper has been charged with re-using engineering designs from prior projects, but for an expanded mission. The cases also explore generic knowledge-transfer issues faced by JPL's Chief Knowledge Officer, David Oberhettinger, such as the role of documentation, uses of formal "lessons learned," and how best to use the scarce time of the most valuable JPL engineers.
Bella Healthcare India was originally established in Bangalore as a low-cost manufacturing facility for a U.S.-based cardiology equipment developer. Under country manager Joseph Cherian it evolved considerably, developing its own research and development capabilities. Strengthened by investment in technical training and a shift in culture and mindset, the India team developed and launched its first successful product in 2005 under the guidance of Cherian and American Jeremy Manning, the Bella India director of R&D. Their success led them to a joint product development venture with the parent company, but organizational, technical, and cultural issues resulted in its cancellation. After this disappointing failure, is Bella India ready to lead a new product development project? If so, is the new project proposed by Cherian the right one to recover with?
A relatively inexperienced professor struggles with managing a case discussion in a class based on numeric analysis. The class is lethargic and time is tight; she considers both a number of possible reasons for their disinterest and different teaching strategies to stimulate discussion and learning.
A professor teaching a case discussion based on numeric analysis is pleased that a student finally "cracks" the case--but the numbers differ from her own. The instructor has to decide how to handle the discrepancy.
Professor Gupta faces three major problems in teaching cases: 1) his students, accustomed to lectures, don't know how to conduct a case discussion; 2) the students are using the Internet to discover the outcome of managerial dilemmas posed in the case; 3) he wants to share the theory he learned as a doctoral student, but can't figure out the appropriate way to integrate theory into the case-based discussion. He seeks advice, particularly about the students' use of the Internet.
Professor Gupta has imposed two new policies on his class, midway through the term: 1) No use of Internet to locate additional information on the company in the case; 2) an increase in the percentage of grades attributed to class participation. He meets with rebellion from the class members.
Leonard, Dorothy A. "Assistant Professor Jo Worthington (TN) (A), (B), (C)." Harvard Business School Teaching Note 911-407, September 2010.
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Kodak must decide whether to make a major investment in a production facility designed around a new technique for producing the gelatin critical to so many film and paper products. Currently, gelatin making is an arcane art, unchanged in 150 years and heavily dependent upon the sensory skills of experienced foremen. The new process, in a pilot stage now, is a chemical reaction which reduces the process time for one step from 6 months to 48 hours and which is much more "scientific." However, the old plant is fully paid for, the new process is only one potential avenue for improvement, and demand for gelatin is falling.
In 1998, the CEO of Whirlpool Corp. decides to change the company's strategy significantly to escape an increasingly unattractive "stalemate" in the appliance industry. The change he proposes involves a fundamental shift in the company's focus--from manufacturing to branding--and requires the development of altogether new organizational capabilities. Examines the full range of adjustments that the CEO must lead his management team to make throughout all the functions of Whirlpool. Distinguishes itself from other cases on strategic change by examining the challenge of change in a company that is not in crisis (yet).
The CEO of Best Buy, a hugely successful retailing company, has hired consulting firm Strategos to imbue the company with an improved innovative capability. The six-month program of experimental learning yields new business ideas and also trains Best Buy employees as innovation coaches. However, this kind of learning is expensive and time consuming. The case details the learning journey as experienced by Best Buy employees and raises the question of when such development programs are appropriate. Focuses on the learning process and stimulates debate about how people and organizations learn in general, as well as how an innovation capability can be fostered.
Leonard, Dorothy A. "Ceramics Process Systems Corp. (A), Teaching Note." Harvard Business School Teaching Note 692-048, March 1992. (Revised August 2005.)
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Leonard-Barton, Dorothy, and Alistair D. Williamson. "Monsanto's March into Biotechnology (A), Teaching Note." Harvard Business School Teaching Note 692-045, March 1992. (Revised June 2005.)
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The CEO of a two-year-old start-up must now decide whether to become a technology provider or a service agency. In a time of enormous uncertainty about the viability of various business models for Internet-delivered services and products, Collabrys has survived the burst Internet bubble by partnering with brand-name large companies and by responding to market feedback. This case traces the company from its earliest days and its original value proposition to a point at which the two very different future strategies appear feasible. Originally funded by venture capital, the company has changed key personnel, experimented with different distribution and partnering schemes, developed some sophisticated intellectual property, and raised a second round of funding.
Leonard, Dorothy A. "Managing Knowledge and Learning at NASA and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) (TN)." Harvard Business School Teaching Note 603-095, February 2003.
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Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) faces a serious loss of knowledge--both because of the "faster, better, cheaper" mandate for Mars missions and from the retirement of key personnel. An extensive knowledge management system for NASA/JPL includes formal knowledge-capture mechanisms such as Web pages and digitized manuals and such informal ones as storytelling. The former are much easier to get funded and to implement than the latter, but chief knowledge architect Jeanne Holm is concerned that technology cannot solve some of the most difficult issues she faces. This case focuses more on managing the tacit knowledge held in the heads of scientists and experienced project managers than on the information technology that Holm has put in place. The switch from expensive but infrequent Mars missions to 2 missions every 26 months propelled a number of junior managers into positions of responsibility and decision making for which they had inadequate experience. In the face of increasingly tight budgets, Holm must decide what kinds of knowledge management initiatives to back--and how to encourage the cultural change that is needed in the organization.
Silicon Valley's Garage.com matches venture capital and corporate angel investors with high-tech start-ups that are looking for early stage funding. As a Web-based service, Garage.com fields inquiries from entrepreneurs and investors around the world, and is eager to expand its operations both in the United States and overseas.
Start-up Zaplet, Inc., has radical software, prestigious venture capital funding, and a multitude of business opportunities. New CEO Alan Baratz must select a strategy and redesign the organization to deliver. This case describes the roles and philosophies of the founders and the Kleiner, Perkins venture capitalist in building the company, the creation of the options for various business applications, and the process of selecting a business focus. Issues include the role of experimentation in selecting a market for new technology, the influence of venture capital, the importance of recruiting key employees, transitions for founders, and matching organizational form to strategy. The key decision is how to further focus the company.
Scott Rozic, CEO of start-up Verge Software, has just told his board that he is taking the company in a totally new direction, moving from enterprise knowledge management software to Internet direct marketing. This case covers the start-up of the business, and Rozic's mentoring by a key angel investor. It leaves open the question of whether this decision is wise or whether Rozic should go back to the enterprise business, now that venture capital funding preferences have shifted once again.
Leonard, Dorothy A. "Solagen: Process Improvement in the Manufacture of Gelatin, Teaching Note." Harvard Business School Teaching Note 692-060, March 1992. (Revised June 1999.)
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Senior management at AMS, a business and information technology consulting company, is growing at 28% annually and assimilating 1,800 new hires a year. AMS has recently instituted a new knowledge management strategy, a group of six knowledge centers (virtual communities of experts) each concerned with one of the company's core disciplines. The initiative is intended to help AMS reach its goal of leadership, as well as to help assimilate the many new consultants. How well does the company's newest knowledge management infrastructure work? The case deals with crucial issues of knowledge transfer and knowledge organization, and innovations in the field of knowledge management.
One of the nation's foremost mini-mills' core competence is the rapid realization of technology into products. This case describes the development of a highly innovative casting technique and features the role of the company's culture in achieving its goals. The company exemplifies a learning organization.
In late 1994, James Down, member of Mercer's Executive Committee, has to decide whether or not he should push ahead with the writing and publication of a book on growth--at a time when the more successful business publications focus on reengineering and cost cutting. He sees this as an opportunity to position Mercer in the consulting market and align the organization--itself a result of several mergers--around a common platform. He is facing resistance within the firm, however, especially from the firm's European offices, which see little need for this knowledge product. Proceeding without Europe could result in an incomplete product and a divided firm. If he waits, though, he may miss a critical market window. The case provides early versions of the growth framework. The product in this case is built from the firm's knowledge assets, and is very different from manufactured hardware or software.
Leonard-Barton, Dorothy, and Thomas A Gerace. "Emerson Electric in China." Harvard Business School Case 694-064, March 1994. (Revised March 1995.)
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The transformation of technology into commercially successful products is a process fraught with risk and uncertainty, and increasing pressure on time to market is exacerbating the difficulties. This note first describes a study conducted by Hewlett-Packard to improve its product development process as an illustration of the increasing focus companies are placing on understanding user needs. A framework of different technology commercialization situations is proposed and the concept of empathic design introduced as a potent mechanism for anticipating user needs, especially under conditions of moderate technical and market uncertainty. Researchers often find traditional market research techniques incompatible with creatively understanding user needs. That is, in many situations, customers cannot ask for a new product (or even a new feature) because they do not know what is possible, technologically.
In the over 20 years since Hewlett-Packard (HP) set up a manufacturing site in Singapore to produce calculators, HP has invested managerial talent and resources in developing its licensor into a technology development partner. The case details the growth of high-volume manufacturing capabilities and the setting up of an R&D facility. Various projects are described in which Singapore contributed an increasing amount of skill, leading up to an abortive attempt to completely co-develop a new printer. Singapore now feels ready to develop a printer on its own for the Japanese market, and the case poses the question of whether or not it is ready to do so. There is also an issue of whether the developers understand the Japanese market well enough to proceed.
ALZA, a company specializing in drug delivery systems such as transdermal patches, considers manufacturing its own products. Until now, the company has conducted research and development on its patented system but has then licensed the technology to client-partner companies, such as Ciba-Geigy, that produce the patches and slow-release pills. These client-partner companies always selected the drugs to be incorporated into the systems on the basis of their experience in pharmaceutical markets. Moreover, these partners had done all the manufacturing. Students are asked to consider the implications of ALZA taking responsibility for not only selecting drugs and markets on its own but also managing a high-volume manufacturing facility. The case focuses on a potentially risky venture requiring a whole set of new capabilities.
ALZA, a drug delivery company, must decide what and for whom to manufacture. In the past, it has licensed to pharmaceutical companies its patented system for the slow release of drugs into the human system. Therefore the company has little experience in choice of drug and product.
ALZA, a drug delivery company, considers marketing its own and other companies' products. The primary issue is whether to build an internal sales force focused on a few niche markets, to finance a sales force through alliances, or to acquire a marketing company.
Leonard-Barton, Dorothy, and Alistair D. Williamson. "MCC: The Packaging and Interconnect Program (A), Teaching Note." Harvard Business School Teaching Note 692-052, March 1992. (Revised April 1993.)
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Leonard-Barton, Dorothy, and Paul Sagawa. "The Carnegie Group." Harvard Business School Case 690-033, January 1990. (Revised November 1992.)
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Leonard, Dorothy A. "Chaparral Steel: Rapid Product and Process Development, Teaching Note." Harvard Business School Teaching Note 692-047, March 1992. (Revised June 1992.)
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Leonard, Dorothy A. "Skunkworks at Digital Equipment Corp.: The Tale of XCON, Teaching Note." Harvard Business School Teaching Note 692-046, March 1992. (Revised May 1992.)
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Leonard, Dorothy A. "Allegheny Ludlum: Research and Engineering Resource Allocation, Teaching Note." Harvard Business School Teaching Note 692-049, March 1992. (Revised May 1992.)
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Leonard-Barton, Dorothy, and Alistair D. Williamson. "New Technology at World Aluminum Corp.: The Jumping Ring Circulator, Teaching Note." Harvard Business School Teaching Note 692-053, March 1992. (Revised May 1992.)
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Leonard-Barton, Dorothy, and Alistair D. Williamson. "Manufacturing Learning Laboratory at Digital Equipment Corp. (A), (B), and (C), Teaching Note." Harvard Business School Teaching Note 692-059, March 1992. (Revised May 1992.)
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Leonard-Barton, Dorothy, and Alistair D. Williamson. "The Carnegie Group, Teaching Note." Harvard Business School Teaching Note 692-051, March 1992. (Revised May 1992.)
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Leonard-Barton, Dorothy, and Alistair D. Williamson. "A New CAE System for Shield Electronics Engineers, Teaching Note." Harvard Business School Teaching Note 692-055, March 1992. (Revised May 1992.)
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Allegheny Ludlum's (AL) technical vice president, Jack Shilling faces the task of determining how to allocate engineering resources among five areas of technology. AL's technology organization has great strategic importance and has therefore been untouched by the company's headcount and overhead reduction policies. Shilling must anticipate and prepare to meet or explore competitive threats and market opportunities as he prepares to make his allocation decisions. Shilling also considers the following questions: What engineering skills should he look for in new hires? Is the current planning system optimal? What criteria should he use in judging projects? (Includes details of three project proposals which students are asked to evaluate). Under what conditions should AL undertake a development as a joint venture rather than keeping it entirely in-house? Teaching objectives include: 1) Analyze resource allocations to support/sustain technological capabilities and 2) Examine technology strategy formulation process.
Monsanto has yet to receive FDA approval for BST, a growth hormone for cows. Anti-BST groups have successfully lobbied Wisconsin and Minnesota, major milk producing states, to ban milk from BST-injected cows; the FDA has charged Monsanto with improperly promoting BST before receiving approval and eventual consumer acceptance of BST generated produce is uncertain.
Leonard-Barton, Dorothy. "Smartwave (B): Implementing an Expert System at Digital Equipment Corp., Teaching Note." Harvard Business School Teaching Note 189-052, September 1988. (Revised May 1990.)
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