In conducting research for our new book on the next–generation enterprise, we have found that a critical differentiator for the next generation of corporate leaders will be the ability to effectively harness and drive innovation. In so doing, these leaders will have found ways to leverage innovation to compete successfully along all three key competitive dimensions: product and technology leadership, operational efficiency and excellence, and customer intimacy and loyalty.1 They will have found ways to sustain innovation cross–functionally and cross–culturally across their extended enterprises of lead customers, lead suppliers, institutional partners, and individual inventors – as if each organization were truly a single integrated enterprise with well–aligned strategic objectives and win–win propositions, hi this article, we will outline the preliminary results from our most recent research into the critical pathways to high–performance technology and innovation management in the next–generation enterprise.