MBA Base Camp: Business Research Basics
August 19, 2009
Introduction & goals - Library services
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Off-campus access to e-resources
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- Articles
- Journal Finder
- E-journals
- Company profiles
- Industry analysis
- Market research
- Investments
- Library catalog & ebooks
MBA Librarian: Steve Cramer
smcramer@uncg.edu
336-256-0346
AIM & Google Talk: stevebizlib
Windows Messenger: smcramer@uncg.edu
Text me: send a message to 265010 & start the message with stevebizlib.
- About you
- About me
- Goals of this orientation:
- Describe basic library services;
- Demonstrate off-campus access to e-resources;
- Explore the types of business databases provided by the library;
- Understand article databases versus Journal Finder.
- Reference librarians: our goal is to make your life easier!
- iMinerva: chat, phone, email, Skype, text, or in person
- Checking out books: semester loans; online renewals, too.
- Getting books & articles from other libraries:
Citation guides:
- For almost all library e-resources, there is no log-in when you are on-campus.
- The library uses an "EZproxy" server to provide off-campus access, so you just need to fill out this form when you see it:
- Usually, you only need to do that once per session (i.e. you can use multiple databases at one sitting without having to log-in each time).
- Troubleshooting Online Access FAQ (includes whom to call or email for help, if necessary)
- Available from the library homepage or the MBA portal
- Most of those databases are paid for by the library (some are quite expensive).
1. Article databases
Basic techniques for article searching:
Combine keywords with "AND"
ex: target AND wal-mart
AND
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Search for related terms with "OR"
ex: target OR wal-mart
OR
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Using parenthesis, you can use OR and AND at the same time.
ex: recession AND sales AND (sam’s club OR wal-mart)
Truncate words that have various endings
ex: Macy's AND market* AND strateg*
Example article database:
Business Source Premier (Ebsco)
- Our largest database for business articles.
- Covers over 8,300 journals, magazines, and newspapers.
- Also provides country economic reports from the Economist/EIU, Global Insight, ICON Group, and CountryWatch.
- Also provides company and industry reports from MarketLine/Datamonitor
- More info
See MBA Databases for more.
Journal Finder links in databases
- Below is an example from Business Source Premier
- Most other databases also provide a Journal Finder link, but that link may be called something else, like "Check for full text availability of this item."
When to search Journal Finder directly
- When you already know exactly what article you need, search Journal Finder directly (it's also on the library homepage).
- Journal Finder covers all 43,000 journals, magazines, and newspapers available online or in print through the library.
2. Company profile databases (examples)
MarketLine
- Covers 10,000 international companies (mostly public), 2,500 industries and markets, and 50 countries.
- The company profiles include company overviews, business descriptions, company history, executive listings, product listings, locations, news, and commentary. Many also provide a SWOT analysis.
- Provides detailed financials and descriptions of 42,000 US & international public companies.
- Covers product, service, and business lines, sales by continents and product lines, balance sheets, income and cash flow statements, ratios, stock, bond, and earnings information, top shareholders, subsidiaries, board members, senior executives and their salaries, and merger and acquisitions.
- Data can be exporting into Excel
- Companies can be easily compared using the Peer Report and Peer Analysis tabs.
- More info
ReferenceUSA
- Provides descriptions of 14 million U.S. companies.
- Also covers 95,000 U.S. and Canadian high-tech businesses.
- Complex searches, based on any combination of 27 values, are possible.
- Search results can be downloaded.
- More info
3. Industry analysis databases
IBIS Industry Market Research
- Provides 25 to 45-page US industry reports for all 5-digit NAICS codes (over 720 reports).
- Each report includes statistics, industry structure, product & customer segmentation, performance analysis, major players & market share, external drivers, 5-year forecasts with forecast analysis, and more.
- Reports are updated three or four times a year.
- More info
- How valuable are these reports? Commercial rates for IBIS reports
S&P NetAdvantage
- Includes the S&P Industry Surveys, which provides analysis, descriptions, and data on 52 industries. Updated twice a year.
- More info
4. Market research databases
Mintel Market Research Reports
- Provides fulltext market and consumer research reports, for many sectors.
International in scope, but with emphasis on the U.S. and Europe.
Most of the reports covers market drivers, market share, size, structure, segmentation, trends, consumer expenditure and spending patterns, psychographics, forecasts, and company and brand profiles.
- More info
- Commercial rates for Mintel reports
Euromonitor Global Market Information Database
- Provides marketing statistics and reports on countries, companies, markets, and consumers from over 200 countries.
- Particularly strong for the clothing, retailing, food, drink, and personal care products industries.
- More info
- Commerial rates for Euromonitor reports
DemographicsNow
- Covers U.S. population, age, race and ethnicity, income, housing, employment characteristics, and consumer expeditures.
- Provides data for census block-groups, census tracts, zip codes, cities, urban areas, counties, and states, as well as custom radiuses defined by the user.
- Areas can be compared and ranked.
- Provide tables, graphs, pie charts, and maps, which can be can be downloaded into Excel, Word, or Adobe Acrobat Reader.
- More info
5. Investment databases
Morningstar
- An investment database for stocks and mutual funds.
Covers all stocks on the NYSE, NASDAQ, and ASE, and 14,000 mutual fund.
Provides screeners, Morningstar Analyst Reports, the portfolio x-ray, and education tools.
- More info
S&P NetAdvantage
- Covers stocks, bonds, and mutual funds.
- Provides a screeners, market snapshots, commentary, and lists of top stocks and funds, and the S&P indexes.
- Use the advanced search from the "Companies" section to access the screeners.
- More info
Available from the library homepage.
- Covers books, ebooks, the music collection, government documents, UNCG theses and dissertations, etc.
- For keyword searches, use the search connectors AND & OR.
- Search for authors in "lastname firstname" order.
- Includes links to e-resources (ebooks, government documents and web sites, etc.)
- The truncation symbol is $.
- Renew your books/check your account online.
- You can also request checked-out books online.
49,000 ebooks available
B. Library services
