U.S. business needs to understand how science and technology influence industrial competitiveness. Even in high-tech products, like computer memories, the U.S. trade surplus declined sharply early in the 1980s, and we were in deficit by 1986. How could this be happening to the greatest scientific power in the world—the home of the most Nobel laureates and innumerable scientific breakthroughs?
A version of this article appeared in the November–December 1989 issue of Harvard Business Review.