The Future.org

According to William E. Coyne, Senior Vice President for Research and Development at 3M, "Most modern companies now recognise that the best way to increase corporate earnings is through top-line growth, and the best route to top-line growth is through innovation". The ability to innovate, however, comes from a skill that is underdeveloped in most companies: collaboration. Knowing how to collaborate helps a company to create and transfer knowledge. Knowledge creation and utilisation, in turn, lead to innovation. Companies that understand this long-linked process, and make the appropriate investments needed to establish and maintain it, will be the big winners in the twenty-first century global economy. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.