Companies take fresh approach to balance ideas, efficiency.

Despite recent news reports to the contrary, quality processes are not stifling creativity at major U.S. corporations. In fact, some highly profitable companies are using unique approaches to strike a balance between efficiency and innovation, according to a new report released recently by the American Society for Quality (ASQ).

In the report, ASQ profiles two major companies—DuPont and Procter & Gamble—well-known industry innovators that have taken steps to fully integrate the creativity-generating functions of R&D and product development with regular process management structures and practices.

For successful collaboration on the job, leaders should think first about behavioral and structural factors, not social media and other IT communications tools.

An astonishing amount of time is being wasted on investigating the amount of time being wasted on social networks. Studies regularly claim that the use of Twitter, Facebook and other such services poses a threat to corporate wealth.

One published last year by Morse, an IT company, estimated that personal use of social networks during the working day was costing the British economy almost £1.4 billion ($2.3 billion) a year in lost productivity. Another, by Nucleus Research, an American firm, concluded that if companies banned employees from using Facebook while at work, their productivity would improve by 1.5%.