Amy Edmondson
2011 Ranking: #35
Amy C. Edmondson is the Novartis Professor of Leadership and Management at Harvard Business School. She is well known for her work on teams, in particular on "teaming" – where, rather than static and stable team structures, there is collaborative work across boundaries involving a more fluid arrangement of personnel.
Before embarking on her career in academia, Edmondson worked as director of research at Pecos River Learning Centers. She also worked for Buckminster Fuller of geodesic dome fame as chief engineer and wrote A Fuller Explanation: The Synergetic Geometry of R. Buckminster Fuller (1987) to help explain his work to readers who don't have a degree in math. Her first business book was Organizational Learning and Competitive Advantage (1996).
Edmondson’s research focuses on learning processes in organizations, and particularly examines group dynamics and how teams learn. Her field research into teamwork has spanned a range of environments including the cardiac surgery operating room; factory floor; and executive suite. This is also the subject of her 2012 book Teaming: How Organizations Learn, Innovate, and Compete in the Knowledge Economy.
