Despite increased business investment in innovation, only 18 percent of executives believe their company's innovation efforts deliver a competitive advantage, according to an Accenture study that also revealed a risk-averse approach to product and service development.

BASF, Dow, DuPont, Honeywell and the rest of the American Chemistry Council's member companies have pledged to implement 11 industry best practices to evaluate and improve their product safety performance.

Some retailers are doing what was once unthinkable, handing over information about exactly how, and where, their products were made.

Panjiva, creator of a business-to-business platform for global trade, is now offering access to Chinese trade data.

Bangladesh is a dangerous place to work in a factory as the Rana Plaza building collapse shows. Local health and safety regulations are so weak that last spring, even before the Rana Plaza disaster, executives at Disney decided they would no longer source toys and apparel from Bangladesh. The company felt the risk to its reputation wasn't worth the low cost of production.