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The purpose of this paper is to offer a critical review of the work of Tom Peters.

Notes a degree of narrative experimentation in the works of Tom Peters. Offers a narrative typology to describe this narrative change, suggests a number of reasons for this narrative experimentation and outlines topics for future research in this area.

The paper suggests that Peters' narrative experimentation reflects twin frustrations. Namely Peters' frustration with the short‐term orientations and innate conservatism of the US business élite and peripheralization in Corporate America.

The paper proposes an original narrative typology for the examination of Peters' work and suggests directions for future research.

Increasingly, managers are harried by rapidly accelerating technological changes, globalization, and new competitors. How can they cope with the mercurial environments their firms are facing today? Should they stop wasting precious time thinking strategically and instead concentrate on action? Should they forget about careful pre‐planning and use their energy to try enough different approaches so some will surely succeed? Has strategizing as we know it become obsolete in today's chaotic environment?

An overview of all the elements that go into formulating a business strategy – including received wisdom from the gurus, vision and values, ideas on growth, forecasting, information, objectives, audits, customers, markets, competition, finances, structure, training – with the focus on how to make it happen. Directed at practising managers whose task this is. Making strategic plans is the easy bit; enacting them requires changing things, getting things done through people. Discusses learning, training and development, culture, quality, with the emphasis on real people in real businesses. Underpinned by the philosophy of “action learning”.

In this article, the author tries to discover the real China. Having conducted seminars in different regions of the country, he recounts his thoughts and experiences. From a typical grimy, industrial city like Datong near Beijing, he flies just two hours south to the province of Guangdong and is greeted by a totally different world. Near here are world‐class hotels, Western clothes instead of the dull “Mao suits” and the streets teeming with thousands of small businesses. So which is the real China? The answer, it appears, is that right now there are two Chinas. However, while cities such as Guangdong are China′s aspiration at this point, the Datongs are still China′s reality.

To increase the odds of survival, leaders at all levels must become obsessive about change. Change must become the norm, not cause for alarm. Questions such as “What, precisely, exactly, unequivocally, have you changed — today?” are deceptively simple but most often go unasked. They are, however, according to the author, far and away the most crucial questions for all today's managers, at all levels.

Outlines the introduction of a new service dubbed InfoEyes that was launched early in 2004 to provide online reference services and related information training specifically for print‐impaired individuals. InfoEyes is a multi‐state project involving libraries for the blind and print impaired in 11 states and the District of Columbia. Briefly reports on the genesis, planning, and the first few months of the pilot test phase.

Creativity and innovation concern the process of creating and applying new knowledge. As such, they are at the very heart of Knowledge Management. This paper first creates a framework in which to discuss these issues. It goes on to explore how our creativity is “blocked” in a variety of ways, including deep‐seated beliefs about the world. Finally, this paper takes a brief look at two tools to support Knowledge Management and creativity: dialogue and groupware.

The American library community is discovering small businesses and economic development. Individual librarians and libraries, of course, have provided effective information services to the business community for many years. Library service to businesses influenced John Cotton Dana to found the Special Libraries Association. Large urban library systems established “mercantile” libraries during the early years of their development. Within the past decade, however, the library community's service to the business and economic development sector has increased significantly. The reasons for this surge in service are simple. Service has been increased because of accountability, competition, opportunity, and evolution. It will be helpful to discuss each of these areas before presenting ten steps state library agencies can take to foster small business development and economic development because factors in each area need to be considered in order to establish a conceptual background for the recommendations.

Competitiveness is one of the most misunderstood concepts of the 1990s. It has drawn substantial attention from the government and business communities during the last 25 years. Morrisson et al. (1988) noted that between 1983 and 1987, the term competitiveness appeared more than 5700 times in the titles of newspapers and magazine articles. The growth of importance and interest can also be observed from the increase in the bibliographical entries in ABI/Inform database. From 1981 to 1986, the topic “international competitiveness” increased by about 26 listings per year (a total of 159 in 6 years) and the rate increased to 45 listings per year from 1987 to 1993. Academic interest in the area has also increased and as a result, new developments contemplating conceptualization and understanding of competitiveness are taking place. However, to no one's surprise, writers from different disciplines offer a variation in perspective when describing the concept, understanding, and postulation of competitiveness.