Managing Global Innovation

PREFACE

In an essay arguing for a shift toward a more globally distributed and integrated approach to innovation, Sam Palmisano, the highly regarded chairman (and recently retired CEO) of IBM, cautioned, “As the twin imperatives of [global] integration and innovation render the old MNCs’ networks of national hubs inefficient and even redundant, it is becoming increasingly clear that the twentieth-century corporate model is no longer optimal for innovation.”¹ Similarly, at GE, Jeff Immelt has put the globalization of innovation at the center of his strategic agenda. During Henning Kagermann’s tenure as CEO of SAP, when asked by one of the authors what he considered his company’s most difficult strategic challenges, he answered, “To build a global ...