Faculty and Research

Heidi K. Gardner is an Assistant Professor of Business Administration in the Organizational Behavior unit at Harvard Business School. She teaches the first-year Leadership and Organizational Behavior (LEAD) course in the MBA program.

Professor Gardner’s research investigates how the use of knowledge in organizations affects outcomes for firms, teams and individuals, with particular emphasis on the use of expertise in professional service firms. One line of her research examines how status dynamics in teams affect members' ability (or willingness) to effectively recognize and use each other's expertise, and the resulting performance implications. Another area of research focuses on knowledge-based innovation.  In particular, this work highlights the ways that professional service firms use organizational structure and processes to help generate new knowledge and exploit existing expertise.  Professor Gardner won the 2007 INFORMS/Organization Science Dissertation Proposal Competition. She has published or has articles forthcoming in Academy of Management Journal and Journal of Organizational Behavior, as well as chapters in edited volumes focusing on organizational behavior, multinational teams, cross-cultural intelligence and the management of professional service firms.

Prior to her academic career Professor Gardner worked as a strategy consultant for McKinsey & Co. in London, Johannesburg and New York, as well as a manager for Procter & Gamble.  She also held a Fulbright fellowship in the former East Germany and lived in Japan for a year while majoring in East Asian studies as an undergraduate at the University of Pennsylvania. More recently, Professor Gardner earned a Masters degree from the London School of Economics and a PhD in Organizational Behavior from London Business School.

Professor Gardner lives in Newton with her husband, Ivan, and their two daughters.

Curriculum Vitae