Takuya Homma's Library tagged Innovation →  View Popular

Most alarming to Mr. Compton is that 60 percent of engineering doctorates from American universities are granted to foreign nationals, but they are no longer staying here to work. “The American economy is not as exciting as China and India, and a lot of them are going back home,” he said.

Ms. Estrin and others acknowledge that the recent surge in financing for alternative energy companies is a sign that innovation is alive and well in some sectors. Still, she is concerned that investors will not have the patience to build these companies.

“If they treat these companies the same way they treated others — a couple years in, they need to see returns or cut the burn rate or start cutting people — they are not going to get to where we need to go,” she said.

Judy Estrin, who has built several Silicon Valley companies and was the chief technology officer of Cisco Systems, says Silicon Valley is in trouble. In a new book, “Closing the Innovation Gap,” which will be in bookstores Tuesday, she writes that the valley’s problems are symptomatic of a crisis in innovation facing the country as a whole.

“Starting in 1998, there was such a shift in Silicon Valley toward chasing money and short-term returns,” she said.

The CEO interviews identified five core traits for the enterprise of the future: 




• Coping with change: Organizations are bombarded by change, and many are struggling to keep up
• Surpassing customer expectations: CEOs view increasingly demanding customers not as a threat, but as an opportunity to differentiate
• Global integrated business designs: Nearly all CEOs are adapting their business models, with two-thirds implementing extensive innovations
• Disruptive, innovative enterprise and industry models: CEOs are moving aggressively toward global business designs, deeply changing capabilities and partnering more extensively
• Corporate social responsibility: The next generation of socially minded customers, workers and investors are carefully watching a company’s every move