Lee Fleming

Lee Fleming joined the IEOR Dept. at UCB this Fall 2011 and is the Faculty Director of the Coleman Fung Institute of Engineering Leadership. He teaches the engineering leadership and capstone integration courses within the Masters of Engineering curriculum. His research has investigated how managers can increase their organization's chances of inventing a breakthrough, through types of collaboration, the integration of scientific and empirical search strategies, and the recombination of diverse technologies. His recent work has disambiguated the U.S. patent record and demonstrated that noncompete agreements create a brain-drain from states that enforce noncompetes to states that do not. His most recent work in Science demonstrated how crowdfunding in a region draws subsequent venture capital investment.

Dr. Fleming earned his bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering at UC Davis. Dr. Fleming earned a Masters in Engineering Management from Stanford University in the Honors Cooperative Program. He received his Ph.D. in Organizational Behavior in the Department of Industrial Engineering at Stanford. He also completed a Masters in statistics during his doctoral years. Between 1998 and 2011, he was a professor at the Harvard Business School, most recently as the Albert J. Weatherhead III Professor of Business Administration.

• Strategies for product invention, through types of collaboration.
• The integration of scientific and empirical search strategies.
• The recombination of diverse technologies.
• Innovation, social networks, knowledge diffusion, regional economics

Balsmeier, B., and S. Lueck, L. Fleming. “Identifying personal knowledge spillovers: co-inventor death and spatial citation differentials.” Forthcoming at American Economic Review: Insights.

Balsmeier, B., G. Manso and L. Fleming. “Heterogeneous Innovation over the Business Cycle.” Forthcoming at Review of Economics and Statistics.

Feldman, M., L. Fleming, S. Heaton, S. Desai, D. Teece. “Uncommon Methods and Metrics for Local Entrepreneurial Ecosystems.” Forthcoming, Research Policy.

Yu, Sandy, and L. Fleming. “Regional crowdfunding and high-tech entrepreneurship.” Forthcoming, Research Policy.

Fitzgerald, T., B. Balsmeier, G. Manso, L. Fleming 2021. “Innovation Search Strategy and Predictable Returns.” Management Science, 67 (2), 1109-1137, 2021.

Kang, H., Fleming, L. 2020. “Non-competes, Business Dynamism, and Concentration: Evidence from a Florida Case Study,” Journal of Economics and Management Strategy. 29:3: 663-685.

Lueck, S., Balsmeier, B., Seliger, F., Fleming, L. 2020. “Early disclosure of patents and reduced duplication; an empirical test.” Management Science 66 (6), 2677-2685.

Fleming, L., M. Marx, H. Green, G. Li, and D. Yao, “Government-funded research increasingly fuels innovation.” Science 21 Jun 2019: Vol. 364, Issue 6446, pp. 1139-1141. (Altmetrics score of 721, Twitter reach of 7.6M).

Fleming, L., M. Marx, H. Green, G. Li, and D. Yao, “Supplementary materials for Government-funded research increasingly fuels innovation.” https://science.sciencemag.org/content/suppl/2019/06/19/364.6446.1139.DC1.

Chai, S., A. D’aMour, L. Fleming 2019. “Explaining and Predicting Scientific Creativity within a Community: An Assessment of the Bibliometric Literature and Application of Machine Learning.” Industrial and Corporate Change: 29 (1), 61-80.

Arts, S. and L. Fleming 2018. “Paradise of Novelty – or Loss of Human Capital? A Natural Experiment in Exploring New Fields and Inventive Output” Organization Science 29 (6), 1074-1092.

O’Reagan, D. and L. Fleming 2018. “The FinFET Breakthrough and Networks of Innovation in the Semiconductor Industry, 1980–2005: Applying Digital Tools to the History of Technology.” Technology and Culture Volume 59, Number 2, pp. 251-288.

Balsmeier, B., Assaf, M., Chesebro, T., Fierro, G., Johnson, K., Johnson, S., Li, G., W.S. Lueck, O’Reagan, D., Yeh, W., Zang, G., Fleming, L. “Machine learning and natural language processing applied to the patent corpus.”  Forthcoming at Journal of Economics and Management Strategy.

Balsmeier, B. and L. Fleming, G. Manso 2017. “Independent Boards and Innovation.” Journal of Financial Economics 123:3:536-557.

Yu, S., and J. Boada, C. Lai, S. Johnson, “Crowdfunding and regional entrepreneurship investment: an application of the CrowdBerkeley database,” Forthcoming at Research Policy.

Sorenson, O. and V. Assenova, G. Li, J. Boada, L. Fleming. “Expanding innovation finance via crowdfunding.” Science 23 Dec 2016: Vol. 354, Issue 6319, pp. 1526-1528.

Sorenson, O. and V. Assenova, G. Li, J. Boada, L. Fleming. “Supplementary Materials for Expanding innovation finance through crowdfunding.” http://science.sciencemag.org/content/suppl/2016/12/21/354.6319.1526.DC1.

O’Reagan, D. and L. Fleming. “Visualizing the Flow of Technology: The FinFet Breakthrough.” Forthcoming at Technology and Culture.

955. Marx and J. Singh, L. Fleming, “Regional Disadvantage? Employee Non-compete Agreements and Brain Drain.”Research Policy44 (2015) 941-955. (Cited in 2016 Economic Report of the President: https://faculty.insead.edu/jasjit-singh/documents/marx_singh_fleming_regional-disadvantage.pdf, and U.S. Treasury Report, https://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/economic-policy/Documents/UST%20Non-competes%20Report.pdf and NYT).

Younge, K. and T. Tong, L. Fleming “How anticipated employee mobility affects acquisition likelihood: Evidence from a natural experiment.” Strategic Management Journal 36: 686–708 (2015).  (Recipient of the 2011 Strategic Management Society Conference, Best Paper Award.)

Nanda, R. and K. Younge, L. Fleming. “Innovation and Entrepreneurship in Clean Energy,” The Changing Frontier: Rethinking Science and Innovation Policy (2015), Adam Jaffe and Benjamin Jones, editors (p. 199 - 232).

Li, G. and R. Lai, D. Doolin, A. D’Amour, A. Yu, Y. Sun, V. Torvik, Fleming, L. “Disambiguation and co-authorship networks of the U.S. Patent Inventor Database, 1975-2010.” Research Policy 43 (2014) 941–955.

Committee Member: Interim Report for the Triennial Review of the National Nanotechnology Initiative, Phase II, National Academies Press, 2012.

Marx, M., and L. Fleming, 2012. “Noncompetes: Barriers to Exit and Entry?” National Bureau of Economic Research Innovation Policy and the Economy, 12: 39-64. University of Chicago Press.

Singh, J. and L. Fleming “Lone Inventors as Sources of Technological Breakthroughs: Myth or Reality?” Management Science, 56 (2010): 41-56.

Marx, M. and D. Strumsky, L. Fleming “Mobility, Skills, and the Michigan Non-compete Experiment,” Management Science, 55 (2009): 875-889 (lead article, winner of Best Informs Technology Management Paper of 2009).

Waguespack, D. and L. Fleming “Scanning the Commons: Evidence on the Benefits to Startups Participating in Open Standards Development,” Management Science, 55 (2009): 210-223.

Fleming, L. and D. Chen, S. Mingo, “Collaborative Brokerage, Generative Creativity, and Creative Success.” Administration Science Quarterly, 52 (2007): 443-475.

Fleming, L. and C. King, A. Juda, “Small Worlds and Regional Innovation.” Organization Science, Vol. 18, No. 2 (2007), pp. 938-954.

Fleming, L. and D. Waguespack, “Brokerage, Boundary Spanning, and Leadership in Open Innovation Communities,” Organization Science, Vol. 18, No. 2 (2007), pp. 165-180 (lead article).

Sorenson, O. and J. Rivkin, L. Fleming “Informational Complexity and the Flow of Knowledge Across Social Boundaries.” In Applied Evolutionary Economics and Economic Geography, ed. K. Frenken. Northhampton, Ma: Edward Elgar, (2007), pgs. 147-160.

Fleming, L. and K. Frenken, “The Evolution of Inventor Networks in the Silicon Valley and Boston Regions,” Advances in Complex Systems,Vol. 10, No. 1 (2007) 53-71.

Fleming, L. and M. Marx, “Managing Creativity in Small Worlds,” California Management Review 48 (Summer 2006): 6-27 (lead article; Winner 2007 Accenture Award; reprinted in IEEE Engineering Management Review 37(4) 90-92.)

Sorenson, O. and J. Rivkin, L. Fleming “Complexity, Networks and Knowledge Flow,” Research Policy 35 (2006): 994-1017.  (Winner of 2005 European Meeting on Applied Evolutionary Economics Best Paper Award; reprinted in Handbook of Evolutionary Economic Geography, Edward Elgar, 2010).

Fleming, L. and M. Szigety, “Exploring the Tail of Creativity: An Evolutionary Model of Breakthrough Invention,” Advances in Strategic Management (2006): 335-362.

Sorenson, O. and L. Fleming “Science and the Diffusion of Knowledge,” Research Policy 33 (2004): 1615-1634.  Winner of Richard R. Nelson Prize of 2005.

Fleming, L. and O. Sorenson. “Science as a Map in Technological Search,” Strategic Management Journal 25: 909–928 (2004).  (Reprinted in Technology Strategy and Innovation, Edward Elgar, 2011.)

Fleming, L. and O. Sorenson.  “Navigating the Technology Landscape of Innovation.” Sloan Management Review, Winter, 2003 (lead article).

Bromiley, P. and L. Fleming.  “The Resource-Based View of Strategy: A Behavioral Critique.” In The Economics of Choice, Change, and Organizations: Essays in Memory of Richard M. Cyert, eds. Mie Augier and James G. March. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar, 2002.

Fleming, L. “Finding the organizational sources of technological breakthroughs: the story of Hewlett‐Packard's thermal ink‐jet.” Industrial and Corporate Change, 11 (5): 1059-1084 (2002).

Fleming, L. and O. Sorenson. “Technology as a Complex Adaptive System: Evidence from Patent Data”, Research Policy, 30 (7), 1109-39, 2001.  (Reprinted in Recent Developments in the Economics of Science and Innovation, Edward Elgar, 2013).

Fleming, L. “Recombinant Uncertainty in Technological Search,” Management Science, 47 (2001): 117-132. (Winner Walter Gruyter/Technology Studies Best Student Paper Award, AOM 1999.)

Billington, C. and L. Fleming “Technological Evolution, Standard Interfaces, and New Market Opportunities,” in POMS Series in Technology and Operations Management, Volume 1, (1998): 30-41.

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