On this episode, two experts from The Conference Board attack one of the central paradoxes of today’s global economy: Why has accelerating digital innovation yet to put economic growth in high gear? Chief Economist Bart van Ark looks to history; since the original Industrial Revolution, all new technologies have taken decades to be fully harnessed by businesses. Do mobile, always-on broadband, and the cloud simply need more time to pay off?  Doug Chia, Executive Director of the Governance Center, presents a more troubling possibility: that American business leaders in the 21st century face a set of short-term incentives that is dragging out and actively impeding the usual deployment timeline.

Indeed, CEOs may see the tantalizing promise of new technologies—and why investing heavily now in areas like artificial intelligence, big data, and green tech could bolster their organizations for decades to come. But they also face a host of more immediate contenders for their attention, including quarterly earnings targets, activist hedge funds, and high-frequency trading—all with the potential to drive them off-course in managing long-term but ultimately winning investments. Are structural factors embedded in American capitalism undermining the innovation necessary for its survival?

Reading List

• Navigating the New Digital Economy: Driving Digital Growth and Productivity from Installation to Deployment (Member Report)
• Is Short-Term Behavior Jeopardizing the Future Prosperity of Business (Member Report)
• “Corporate Short-Termism is a Frustratingly Slippery Idea” (The Economist, February 16, 2017)
• Kraft Heinz Withdraws $143 Billion Offer to Merge With Unilever (New York Times, February 19, 2017)

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