North america

The U.S. may be the world’s leading innovator, but it won’t be for long if investors, regulators, and the legal establishment continue to penalize companies for risk taking, says Deborah Wince-Smith, president of the Council on Competitiveness. Recently, the council’s National Innovation Initiative, a leadership network of CEOs and university presidents, released a report in […]

The attributes metros must have to thrive in the digital economy.

How the current system works, and why it needs fixing.

A wounded-but-wiser AT&T veteran recounts how one of the world’s biggest and best-known companies became one of its most battered—and explains how others can avoid that fate.

Observations from Rhode Island.

High-stakes projects need all-star teams. But all-stars often play by their own rules—and fight like cats and dogs.

Today, most multinationals have a conspicuous social conscience. They publicize their internal codes of conduct, monitor labor conditions in their global supply chains, and require suppliers to meet basic labor practice standards. But despite efforts to be better global citizens, companies by themselves are unable to eliminate abuses in their supply chains. In fact, so […]

Obama's plan rightly focuses on "middle-skill" training and jobs.

In Silicon Valley, exciting new business ideas rapidly attract capital and talent away from less worthy ventures. But in big companies, ideas, capital, and talent are stagnant—prisoners of traditional bureaucratic ways of allocating resources. To capture the Valley’s entrepreneurial magic, your company needs to move from resource allocation to resource attraction.

Regulation often helps incumbent firms.

Some leaders fly higher than the rest, but their journey is fraught with danger. To survive in the rarefied atmosphere, they need to cast off certain skills and instincts while revitalizing and developing others.

Policy decisions in 12 areas could nurture—or cripple—America’s greatest asset.

Identify and shore up your weaknesses.

Focus on the people who already live in your community.

The U.S. health care crisis is about manpower as well as money. Within the next 15 years, experts predict a shortfall of 800,000 nurses and 200,000 doctors, and the American education system is inadequate to take up the slack. As caregiver supply declines, demand for it will rise. For one thing, there are 80 million […]

Over many years, the leaders of SAS Institute have distilled a set of principles for getting peak performance from creative people. Among them: Value the work over the tools, reward excellence with challenges, and minimize hassles.

For the U.S. to remain competitive, its students need to learn vastly more, much more quickly. New approaches prove they can.

The U.S. remains richer than its peers. But why? A plausible list of explanations might include: A culture of entrepreneurship and a financial system...

And electronic tools can help them do it.

A new paper examines the importance of government in economic growth.