Open source software maker Red Hat Inc. (NYSE: RHT) was ranked fourth on Forbes’ World’s Most Innovative Companies list.

The Raleigh, N.C.-based company was the highest-ranked among a dozen on the radar of citybizlist. The following is a list of the 12 companies on the list, along with their ticker symbol, location and business:

#4. Red Hat Inc. (NYSE: RHT), Raleigh, N.C.; software
#13. FMC Technologies (NYSE: FTI), Houston; oil and gas
#23. Estee Lauder Companies (NYSE: EL), New York; cosmetics
#35. Hershey Company (NYSE: HSY), Hershey, Pa.; chocolate
#37. Colgate-Palmolive Company (NYSE: CL), New York; dental care
#56. Celgene Corp. (Nasdaq: CELG), Summit, N.J.; biopharmacy
#58. PepsiCo (NYSE: PEP), Purchase, N.Y.; beverages and snacks
#68. Automatic Data Processing (NYSE: ADP), Roseland, N.J.; outsourcing
#73. Anadarko Petroleum Corp. (NYSE: APC), The Woodlands, Texas; oil and gas
#78. Campbell Soup Company (NYSE: CPB), Camden, N.J.; soup and ready-to-eat foods
#90. General Electric Company (NYSE: GE), Schenectady, N.Y.; diversified conglomerate
#99. Danaher Corp. (NYSE: DHR), Washington, D.C.; scientific instruments

The second annual study by Forbes was designed by Jeff Dyer, the Horace Beesley Professor of Strategy at the Marriott School of Management at Brigham Young University, and Hal Gregersen, a senior affiliate professor of leadership at the INSEAD business school.

San Francisco-based software maker Salesforce.com topped the list.

Dyer and Gregersen used something called the “Innovation Premium” to compile the list. “It is calculated first by projecting a company’s income (cash flows, in this case) from existing businesses, plus anticipated growth from those businesses, and look at the net present value (NPV) of those cash flows,” the two wrote in an article on Forbes. “We compare the NPV of cash flows from existing businesses with a current market capitalization: Companies with a current market cap above the NPV of cash flows have an innovation premium built into their stock.”

The authors said innovation depended on how companies leveraged the three Ps – people, process, and philosophies.

“We’ve found that successful leaders personally understand how innovation happens and they try to imprint their behaviors as processes and philosophies within their organization,” Forbes said.

Forbes cited as an example Estee Lauder CEO Fabrizio Freda, who reportedly excels at challenging the status quo by “playing the outsider.” He reportedly learned this lesson early in his career, as he moved from Procter & Gamble to Gucci SpA and back to P&G.

“The experience outside [P&G] gave me a lot more authority in challenging the status quo,” Freda told Forbes, “I stayed the challenger forever.”