CAMBRIDGE, Mass., March 21, 2006 -- MIT's 5th Annual Innovations in Management Conference has been slated for May 9-10, when faculty from the MIT Sloan School of Management will share important new findings on innovation and leadership in global business practice, examining issues of innovation, global entrepreneurship, global knowledge creation and sharing, international labor practices and finding better ways of developing better products globally. Entitled "How Globalization is Driving the Future of Business," the program is designed to help senior managers stay abreast of strategic approaches to management in a global environment.

According to conference organizer and Sloan School of Management Deputy Dean Steven Eppinger, the trend toward globalization is clear and irreversible, one sign being the accelerating adoption of distributed engineering, made possible by the advent of advanced collaboration tools, and reliable high-speed Internet connections to lower-cost engineering talent in India, Eastern Europe, China, and other emerging economies. In his talk, "Creating Products Globally," Eppinger will share several case studies to help explain how competitive firms are taking advantage of distributed engineering and thinking globally about global product development processes.

Other scheduled presentations for the day-and-half conference include: "The Globalization of Science," "The Changing World Economy," "Accelerating Time to Market with Globalized R&D," "Global Labor Standards," "How to Get Others to Innovate for You: Lesson from the Global Pharmaceutical Industry and Open Source Communities," "The Dynamics of Leadership and Innovation," "China and India: Competitive Challenges," and "Product vs. Services: Which is the Better Business Model in Software and Other Industries?"

For more information on the 2006 MIT Innovations in Management Conference, please see http://ilp-www.mit.edu/events/Mgt2006

About the MIT Industrial Liaison Program

The Industrial Liaison Program (ILP) is industry's chief gateway to MIT, enabling companies worldwide to harness MIT resources to address current challenges and to anticipate future needs. The ILP helps company managers monitor MIT research developments, identify and arrange expert consultations with MIT faculty, license MIT-owned intellectual property, and facilitate corporate objectives through sponsored research at MIT. For more information please see the ILP Web site at http://ilp-www.mit.edu/.