Jim Utterback is David J. McGrath jr (1959) Professor of Management and Innovation and Professor of Engineering Systems at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Since receiving the Ph.D. in 1968 from the MIT Sloan School of Management, Prof. Utterback has held faculty positions at Indiana University, the Harvard Business School, and Chalmers Technical University as well as MIT. From 1983 through 1988, he served as Director of Industrial Liaison at MIT. His research has focused on the process of technological innovation in firms in the United States and in other countries. He is author of Mastering the Dynamics of Innovation, published in 1994 and of Design-Inspired Innovation, published in 2006. Recent publications include contributions to Management Science, Research Policy, Strategic Management Journal, Technological Forecasting and Social Change and The Sloan Management Review.
Jim's teaching focus is on understanding the dynamics of product and process development, emerging and disruptive technologies, and the varied roles of firms as predators and prey when new technologies emerge. His current research focuses on the sustained growth of newly formed design and technology-based firms in the United States, Sweden, Italy and the United Kingdom.
Jim is one of the founding faculty of the Management of Technology Program (now called the Sloan Fellows in Innovation and Global Leadership), which was the first area of study at MIT that awarded degrees jointly from the Schools of Management and Engineering. He is also one of the founders of the Leaders for Manufacturing Program (now called Leaders for Global Operations), which awards dual degrees in engineering and in management and has recently helped develop a similar program in Biomedical Enterprise.
Jim received the D.Sc. (Hon) from Chalmers University in Gothenburg, Sweden in 1997, and was elected a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences in 1999. He is currently a member of the Board of Governors of the Argonne National Laboratory, Chicago, Illinois, and was recently elected a Life Fellow of Clare Hall at the University of Cambridge.