Foster Business Library


Leadership & Strategic Thinking


Foster Business Library research guides are aimed at University of Washington students, faculty, and staff, highlighting resources available to them; users not currently affiliated with the university may be unable to access some of these resources.
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Foster Business Library Databases:

The Foster Business Library offers an extensive collection of over fifty databases on its homepage; see under Databases. For a complete list of Foster databases, see the List of All Business Databases. Access to these databases from off campus requires that you first go to the Off-Campus Access button, in the upper right of all library webpages. These resources may not be accessed from off campus except by those with a valid UW Net ID and password. For more information on Foster business databases, click Databases, A-Z. For information on which Foster business databases to use, see the Database Index. For information on accessing Foster databases from off campus, see Database Access. For guidelines on responsible database usage, see Database Usage.

  • Conference Board Business Knowledge Research:   On the Foster Business Library homepage, under List of All Business Databases, at the bottom of the list of Business Databases. This searchable database of full-text research reports, published by the Conference Board, is focused on major issues in business and economics. For a 37-page PDF cumulative index to this database, click here.

    See their 35 reports on Leadership Development and 89 reports on Strategy.

  • Gale Virtual Reference Library:   On the Foster Business Library homepage, listed under List of All Business Databases.   The Gale Virtual Reference Library is a database of encyclopedias, almanacs, and specialized reference sources for multidisciplinary research; go to Business for three major business sources:   the Encyclopedia of American Industries (4th ed., 2005), the Encyclopedia of Business and Finance (2001), and the Encyclopedia of Small Business (2nd ed., 2002).

    See Leadership in the Encyclopedia of Business and Finance, as well as in the Gale Encyclopedia of Psychology and in the Encyclopedia of Sociology. See also Strategic Management, in the Encyclopedia of Business and Finance.

  • JSTOR:   This database may be found under Electronic Journals, which may be found by going to Reference Tools in the left menu, under Find It. JSTOR is a subject searchable index of 360 journals, with full-text backfiles of scholarly journals, some of which date back to the 1800's. Among the collections of scholarly journals on this site are ones for Business and for Economics, encompassing over seventy journals.

    A search for Leadership and "Strategic Thinking" produced a list of over 870 articles.

    Web Resources:

    Unlike library databases, Web resources are available wherever you have web access; they do not require that you access them via the Off-Campus Access button, in the upper right of all library webpages. When using web resources, be sure to evaluate the credibility of these resources. For a subject index to web resources, see Business Resources on the Web on the Foster Business Library homepage.

  • Center for Creative Leadership:   This nonprofit organization "is dedicated exclusively to leadership. CCL integrates cutting-edge research with innovative training, coaching, assessment and publishing to create proven impact for leaders and organizations around the world." See their Articles, Reports & Presentations.

  • Where Have All the Leaders Gone?:   This April 2007 book, by Lee Iacocca with Catherine Whitney, "has a question for every American: where have all the leaders gone?" See the excerpt where Iacocca talks about the Nine C's of Leadership, as he sees it.

  • Wikipedia:   This free online user-created and maintained encyclopedia can be a good starting point for an orientation to a topic. See their entries for Leadership, Strategic Management, and Strategic Thinking (with a comparison between strategic thinking and strategic planning).

    See also these leadership centers:

    Foster Business Library Reference Collection:

    The Foster Business Library Reference Collection consists of business handbooks, encyclopedias, dictionaries, and other quick reference tools. It is located behind the Reference Desk in Foster, arranged by call number. Reference materials cannot be checked out; they may only be used in the library.

  • Blackwell encyclopedic dictionary of organizational behavior.
    This dictionary offers 500 essays (500 to 1,000 words in length) from 180 authorities on current knowledge and thinking about the key concepts of organizational behavior.
    Foster Business Library Reference, CALL NUMBER: HD30.15 .B455 1995 v. 6

    See Leadership, pages 284 to 288; see Charismatic Leadership, pages 288 to 289; see Leadership contingencies, pages 289 to 290, as well as sections on other leadership theories.

  • Encyclopedia of management.
    This one-volume encyclopedia covers 348 management topics, arranged alphabetically from Activity-Based Costing to Zero-Sum Game.
    Foster Business Library Reference, CALL NUMBER: HD30.15 .E49 2000.

    See the essay on Leadership, starting on page 490.

  • AMA management handbook.
    This thick one-volume handbook comprises 16 sections on important areas of management, written by expert practitioners.
    Foster Business Library Reference, CALL NUMBER: HD31 .A418 1994.

    See Leadership Theory, section one, pages 15 to 17, and Management Theory and Applications, section one, pages 18 to 23.

  • Business: the ultimate resource.
    This 2,200-page single volume is "designed to offer a wide range of insights, information, and practical guidance on every aspect of management" via 2.5 million words of text from 200 contributors, with 700 illustrations and 150 maps, in seven major sections including best practice, a management library, business thinkers and management giants, a business dictionary, a world business almanac, and a guide to business sources.
    Foster Business Library Reference, CALL NUMBER: HD38.15 .B878 2002.

    See Leadership on pages 212 to 213 and 216 to 217.

  • Encyclopedia of leadership.
    The subtitle of this encyclopedia is "a practical guide to popular leadership theories and techniques." It is aimed at "leaders, consultants, and trainers in all industries and organizations, at all levels of experience." On pages xxvi and xxvii, they provide a leadership tool finder, matching leadership resources to specific needs. This encyclopedia covers leadership concepts and tools in over 450 pages of detail, with worksheets, exercises, suggestions for further reading, and an index.
    Foster Business Library Reference, CALL NUMBER: HD57.7 .H525 2001.

    See pages xviii to xxx where the authors map leadership gurus with the leadership tools they inspired.

  • IEBM handbook of organizational behavior.
    This one-volume work covers a large variety of topics in organizational behavior, arranged alphabetically by topic, with essays ten to twelve pages long.
    Foster Business Library Reference, CALL NUMBER: HD58.7 .I35 1997.

    See Leadership, pages 340 to 349, for a good summary of trends and changes in theory.

  • Encyclopedia of organizational change methods.
    This older single volume British work covers a large variety of topics in organizational behavior, arranged alphabetically by organizational change method. Search for topics in the index of methods, pages xvii to xxvi. with essays ten to twelve pages long.
    Foster Business Library Reference, CALL NUMBER: HD58.8 .H82 1987.

    As an example, see Situational Leadership, pages 282 to 284.

  • Encyclopedia of business ethics and society.
    This five-volume reference work includes 900 essays by scholars, arranged alphabetically by topic, on all aspects of business ethics.
    Foster Business Library Reference, CALL NUMBER: HF5387 .E53 2008.

    See Leadership in volume three, on pages 1266 to 1273.

  • Human resources management and development handbook.
    This oversized 1,400-page handbook covers all aspects of human resources and is aimed at human resources managers and practitioners, with long essays on each topic and references for further reading.
    Foster Business Library Reference, CALL NUMBER: HF5549.5 .M3 .H85 1994.

    As an example, see Leadership, pages 303 to 314.

    Foster Business Library Books:

    The Foster Business Library maintains a collection of over 70,000 books on all business topics. To search for materials on all three campuses of the University of Washington, go to the UW Libraries Catalog, in the upper left corner of the Foster Business Library homepage. Search by keyword, title, author, series, etc.

    To limit the results of your search just to materials in the Foster Business Library collection, use the Modify or Limit options at the top of the search results and change the library location to Foster Business Library. Availablity is indicated on the right of each online catalog record. First, note in which collection, within Foster, your materials are in, since the library has ten different Collections, each in a different location and often with differing arrangements. "Available" indicates that the book should be on the shelves under that call number and available for you to check out. "Due" and a date indicates that the book is already checked out to someone and is due back on the date indicated; you can have the "Request/Place Hold" feature to recall the book for your use.

    If the material you want is not in the collections of the University of Washington, you can use the "Search Summit" feature to repeat your search in the combined holdings of over thirty cooperating libraries in Washington and Oregon. Use the "Request This Item" feature in Summit to have books in those library sent here to Foster for you to check out.

    The Foster general stacks collection is located south of the main part of the Foster Business Library, through the two pass-throughs into the basement of Balmer. The arrangement is by call number, from A (at the east end, near the Copy Center) to Z (at the far west end).

    A keyword search for Leadership and Strategic Thinking, limited to the Foster Business Library, retrieved just two records:

    A keyword search just for Leadership, limited to the Foster Business Library, retrieved over 700 records, including:

    A keyword search just for Strategic Thinking, again limited to Foster, produced fourteen records, including:

    Books about leadership are grouped under the subject heading Leadership; the Foster Business Library's collections include over four hundred records for this subject. Books about strategic thinking are grouped under the subject heading Strategic Planning; the Foster Business Library's collections include over 380 records for this subject.

    Foster Business Library Articles:

    Articles in academic journals, magazines, trade periodicals, and newspapers are one of the best sources for any kind of research. While the Foster Business Library offers a large periodicals print collection, comprising over 800 titles, articles are most easily accessed online, 24/7, in such fulltext article databases as EBSCO Business Source Premier, Factiva, LexisNexis Academic, Newsbank Infoweb, and ProQuest Databases. These article databases are available in the library or from off-campus, and provide access to over 10,000 periodicals and millions of articles.

    Library access to most ProQuest databases will terminate at the end of spring quarter 2008, except for ProQuest NewsStand, ProQuest Dissertations and Theses, Historical New York Times, and the Historical Wall Street Journal. For more about this change, see UW Libraries Providing New Databases. After this change, comprehensive article searches should be performed in EBSCO Business Source Premier, Newsbank Infoweb, and ProQuest NewsStand. Also, after this change, links to the articles below will be broken.

    ProQuest Databases:

    This database--actually, a family of over two dozen databases--offers full text articles for over 10,000 publications, including scholarly journals, magazines, trade and industry periodicals, newspapers, and reports on a very wide range of topics. To find articles on specific topics, search by word or phrase by keying your search phrase into the search box--or search for your topic in the Topic Guide.

    Your search terms will be highlighted in red in each article.

    This database includes full text for:

    A search for Leadership and "Strategic Thinking" produced over four hundred articles, including seventy articles in scholarly journals, just nine magazine articles, over a hundred articles in trade and industry periodicals, and over 140 newspaper articles. This database labels articles on these two concepts under the subject headings Leadership and Strategic Planning. A search for SUB(Leadership) and SUB(Strategic Planning) produced over eleven hundred articles, including over 430 articles in scholarly journals, over 100 magazine articles, over 520 articles in trade and industry periodicals, and over 100 newspaper articles. Many articles from this combined subject search are about politics rather than business, however. To remedy this problem, try a search for SUB(Leadership) and SUB(Strategic Planning) and SUB(Executives); a search for these three subjects produced just over one hundred articles.

    Examples of articles, from the searches above, include:

    The January 2008 issue of the Harvard Business Review, available via EBSCO Business Source complete, is focused on leadership and strategy; for a link to the online full text of those articles, click here. Help:

    19 April 2007; updated 8 May 2008.   Peter Stevens, Business Librarian, stevens@u.washington.edu