Team Librarian Consultation

Web Resources:

Unlike library databases, these Web resources are available wherever you have web access; they do not require that you access them via the UW Connectivity Kit or the UW Libraries Proxy Server for authentication. 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.
• IKEA:   Public company websites usually provide extensive amounts of corporate information including histories of the company, investor information such as annual reports and Securities and Exchange Commission filings, historical stock prices, executive biographies, company news and press releases, etc. Look for this information under headings for Investor Relations, About The Company, etc. Private company websites often focus on products and services but seldom provide any useful information about the company, its history, its organization, or its financials.

  Go to the IKEA USA homepage and then to About IKEA for their historical Timeline, Vision, Facts & Figures, Social & Environmental Responsibility, etc. There is a good deal more information here than on most private company websites.

• Business for Social Responsibility:   Business for Social Responsibility "is a global organization that helps member companies achieve success in ways that respect ethical values, people, communities and the environment." It is "a global nonprofit organization that helps member companies achieve commercial success in ways that respect ethical values, people, communities and the environment. BSR member companies have nearly $2 trillion in combined annual revenues and employ more than six million workers around the world."

  IKEA International is a member of this organization. See this organization's list of Resources, including their Introduction to Corporate Social Responsibility. A site search for IKEA retrieved 58 references.

• SustainableBusiness.com:   "We are the Internet community for businesses that integrate economic, and social and environmental concerns into their core strategy. In short, we help green business grow. We use the Internet to "grease the wheels" - to accelerate the spread of sustainable business practices by increasing market penetration of sustainable products, services, and the companies that produce them. SB.com covers the field as a whole, bringing together businesses from such diverse industries as renewable energy, organic products, social investing, green building and construction, and re-manufacturing." This site has a useful Resource Directory and a search engine.

  A search for IKEA retrieved a list of four articles.

• Harvard Business School Cases:   This site offers access to Harvard Business School's collection of over 7,000 cases as well as numerous other products, with a site search feature. The Foster Business Library does not collect Harvard Business School cases since they are designed for classroom use.

  A search, in all products, including cases, for IKEA turned up just two items, a 1990 20-page case entitled Ingvar Kamprad and IKEA which "traces the development of a Swedish furniture retailer under the leadership of an innovative and unconventional entrepreneur" and a 13-page Harvard Business Review article From Value Chain to Value Constellation: Designing Interactive Strategy, published in the July 1, 1993 issue.

• Furniture/Today:   Trade and industry periodicals are often good sources for industry information, news, and statistics, though some information may be limited to subscribers only.

  See their Research; most research is available to order but a few items are downloadable for free; see also the articles free for downloading at the bottom of this page. In addition, see their Web Links sections.

• The National Bureau of Economic Research:   "Founded in 1920, the National Bureau of Economic Research is a private, nonprofit, nonpartisan research organization dedicated to promoting a greater understanding of how the economy works." "The NBER is the nation's leading nonprofit economic research organization. Twelve of the 31 American Nobel Prize winners in Economics and three of the past Chairmen of the President's Council of Economic Advisers have been researchers at the NBER. The more than 600 professors of economics and business now teaching at universities around the country who are NBER researchers are the leading scholars in their fields." This organization produces many publications, the full text of which is often available free on their homepage.

  See their working paper #8112, dated February 2001, entitled The law of one price, 22 pages in PDF format, which analyzes prices for more than one hundred identical goods sold by IKEA in 25 countries.

The Foster Business Library maintains a collection of over 70,000 books on all business topics, including many books useful for country research. To identify relevant books, go to the UW Libraries Catalog on the Foster Business Library homepage (under Business Databases). Try searching by keyword. Use the Limit/Sort feature to create a list of books in the Foster Business Library and in order from newest book to oldest. To do so, use the pulldown menu under WHERE item is located to specify Foster Business Library and click on the box near the bottom Sort results by year. Then click on Limit/sort items retrieved using above data. Clicking on the titles in the resulting list will bring up the full catalog record, indicating which Foster area has the book (general stacks, reference, reserve, etc.), the call number and the circulation status.

Circulation status is indicated in the box in the middle of each online catalog record, on the right. Check Shelf 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.

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 IKEA retrieved a list of just three records, two of which are in the Foster Business Library, including the 1999 book, Leading by design: the IKEA story.

A word search in OhioLink, to identify books with chapters about the company, retrieved 28 records including these UW Libraries' titles:

• Branding in Asia: the creation, development, and management of Asian brands for the global market (2001)   See chapter four for IKEA (Ikea: Using multi-positioning to establish market niche)
• Strategic innovation: an international casebook on strategic management   (1997)   see chapter 16, IKEA of Sweden: the global retailer
• Global marketing management: cases and readings   (1992)   See case number four, Ingvar Kamprad and IKEA
• Designing interactive strategy: from value chain to value constellation   (1994)   See example one, IKEA.
• Transnational management: text, cases, and readings in cross-border management   (1992)   See chapter one, which includes IKEA.
• The Next generation of information systems   (1992)   See the chapter Building Human-Centred Intelligent Cooperative Information Systems with IKEA.

Foster Business Library Corporate Annual Reports:

The Foster Business Library maintains a collection of several thousand annual reports for hundreds of U.S. and foreign companies. These reports are filed in lateral filing cabinets near the Foster Reference desk under the sign Corporate Annual Reports. Annual reports for companies in an industry can be a valuable source of information about the industry itself. For a list of all the companies in the Corporate Annual Reports collection, click here. For an index to corporate annual reports in the collection by industry sector, click here. For an index to companies in the collection with headquarters outside the U.S., click here.

Since IKEA International, as a private company, does not have to issue annual reports, there are no annual reports for them in the Foster collection. The collection does, however, include some companies in the Retail industry.

Foster Business Library Articles:

In addition to the 800 journals in the Foster Business Library Periodicals Collection, the Foster Business Library offers access to 11,000 full text periodical articles through its full text article databases such as: ABI/Inform Global, Factiva, and Lexis-Nexis Academic Universe. These article databases may be found on the Foster Business Library homepage, listed alphabetically under Business Databases or in the Articles: Full Text folder.

Of these three main sources, all but Factiva are available from any computer on the campus network (as well as from home) via the UW Connectivity Kit or via the Libraries' proxy server. The easiest of these databases to use is ABI/Inform Global. For more information about accessing Foster Business Library databases from off campus, click here. For more information about business databases, click here.

• ABI/Inform Global:

  This database offers full text articles for over 800 journals. To find articles on specific topics, search by word or phrase by keying your search phrase into the search box. ABI/Inform Global includes journals but not national or Washington state newspapers (though the Wall Street Journal is included). It also does not include valuable trade and industry and other periodicals. Your searches will span the widest possible array of publications by expanding your search to all databases in ABI/Inform. To expand your search to include all collections in this database, click on Select Multiple Databases, to the right of the search box. Click then on Select All Databases.

  Your search terms will be highlighted in red in each article. For tips on searching this database, click here.

  For example, a search in this database, in all collections, for CO(IKEA AB), for articles published since 1999, produced a list of 270 articles; expanding the search throughout the backfile of articles published from 1986 to 1998 produced a list of 214 articles. A similar search for CO(Ikea Holding US Inc) produced a list of seven articles, searching in articles published since 1999, and 20 articles, searching in articles published from 1986 to 1998. A search for CO(Ikea North America) produced a list of 132 articles, searching in articles published since 1999, and 46 articles, searching in articles published from 1986 to 1998.

The Foster Business Library Reference Desk is staffed nearly all of the hours that the library is open. The staff at the desk will be happy to help you find business research tools and resources, exploit business databases to the fullest or advise on research strategies. For e-mail questions, direct your query to balib@u.washington.edu. For assistance by telephone, dial (206) 543-8012 during library hours.

For research guides on a wide variety of industries, products, companies, issues and topics, see the Team Librarian Consultation archives.

• Team Consultation Course/Program Index
• Team Consultation Industry Index      (Retail Industry)
• Team Consultation Quarter Index
• Team Consultation Title Index
• Team Consultation and Research Guide Index

Need help with writing or revising the written part of your assignment? The Business Writing Center, in Lewis Hall 304, provides consultations on business class writing assignments (as well as cover letters, and resumes) with an advanced business student trained in critiquing drafts and coaching writers. Need help citing sources? Try our guide to Citing Sources.