Content last reviewed:
Good help guides from the web include:
- IBM, Guide to Financial Statements
- U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Beginner's Guide to Financial Statements
- 12 Things You Need To Know About Financial Statements
The following online resources will define and explain business vocabulary:
- Blackwell Encyclopedia of Management
- Dictionary of Accounting [electronic resource]
- A Dictionary of Finance and Banking [electronic resource]
- Wall Street Words HG4513.S37
Grey literature is an important source of information for research in public policy.
Grey literature is defined as "information produced on all levels of government, academics, business and industry in electronic and print formats not controlled by commercial publishing" ie. where publishing is not the primary activity of the producing body." ICGL Luxembourg definition, 1997. Expanded in New York, 2004
Types of Grey Literature
- Government Information
- Theses and Dissertations
- Conference Proceedings (select Conference Proceedings Citation Index)
- Newspapers and Magazines
- Think Tanks
Policy Reports and Working Papers
- Brookings Institute
- Canadian Public Policy Collection
- Conference Board of Canada e-Library In addtion to the e-Library, look to particular Centres for research on specific topics. Go to Conference Board of Canada and scroll down to the bottom of the page. Select Sitemap. Under Special Projects you will see Centre for the North, Centre for Food in Canada, How Canada Performs, etc.
- National Bureau of Economics Research (NBER) Working Papers
- Policy File Index (U.S.)
- Social Research and Demonstraton Corporation A non-profit research organization, created specifically to develop, field test, and rigorously evaluate new programs.
Think Tanks
- ThinkTankWatch
- Harvard Kennedy School provides a searchable database of more tha 590 think tanks and research centres.
TIP: Search NAICS to get the industry code for an industry
Canadian Only
Global (also includes Canadian data)
- 10K Reports or Corporate Disclosure documents to find technologies used by companies within your industry.
- Management Discussion and Analysis (MD&A) section of a company's 10K will identify threats from other industries.
- Research reports from investment banks such as Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, etc.
- Analyst reports from Bloomberg
- Mergent Online (includes Mergent Industry Reports)
- EDGAR
- Factiva
- Passport
- Business Source Complete - search your topic, product, company or industry. Under Refine your results choose Industry Overview and Industry Profile.
- Mergent Online - when connected, select the Report Search tab from the menu. Select industry of interest and then geographical region.
- Factiva - mouse over Companies/Markets from menu bar at top of page, select Industry. Select industry from the list provided. Published profiles are found under Analysis and Profiles from menu on left.
- Passport - By selecting Search from the menu tab, you may choose any industry or industries and narrow by country or countries in one search. Tip - choose the industry plus specific parts of industry as there is often more than one industry profile.
- Conference Board of Canada e-Library - Browse by topic -> Industry Sector Economics for industry profiles or enter industry name in the search box. For example: Canada’s Computer Systems Design Industry: Industrial Outlook Autumn 2015
- Canadian Industry Statistics from Industry Canada. Look under Manufacturing and then under NAICS codes 334 and 335.
Tips for Industry information:
Look for valuable information and data from trade associations
Google the industry + country or region + association
(Many are located in Ottawa with lobbyists from other industries.)
- Business Source Complete
Provides access to scholarly journals, trade publications, industry profiles, SWOT analyses and more - Canadian Business & Current Affairs Database
- CPI-Q (Canadian Periodical Index)
- PAIS Index
Good to know:
- Within a database, limit your search to scholarly articles when it is appropriate to disregard other resources.
- Never limit to full-text only as we may subscribe to the journal you find from another vendor. Use the Get it! icon to search for the full text when it is not immediately available.
- Use available options to search more than one database at a time.
- Look for the option to set up an RSS feed or to Create an Alert. You are then notified when a new entry is added to the database that meets your search criteria.
- Use our Interlibrary Loans service directly from Omni searches to request items not held at Carleton’s library.
- Bloomberg News
- PressReader PDFs to more than 2300 newspapers from 97 countries in over 55 languages.
- includes the Ottawa Business Journal and the Ottawa Book of Lists
- Canadian Business & Current Affairs Provides full text to Canadian business journals and magazines.
- Canadian Newsstand Access to over 280 Canadian news sources
- Eureka Fulltext Canadian French and English newspapers from Alberta, the Atlantic provinces, Québec and aboriginal communities. Includes fulltext transcripts radio and television broadcats from CBC, CTV and SRC.
- Factiva (Globe and Mail and the Wall Street Journal live here)
- Wire Report The leading news service covering Canada's rapidly converging telecom and media sectors.
- Journalist's resource: research on today's news topics
The following titles are available through the Library:
- EIU Economist Intelligence Unit Provides current and historical economic data and forecasting
- Conference Board of Canada eLibrary Go to Browse by Topic. Under the heading Economic Trends, the Conference Board provides economic forecasting for Canada, the provinces and cities.
- globalEDGE
- World Bank, Doing Buisness Doing Business provides objective measures of business regulations and their enforcement across 183 economies. Each economy is ranked according to 10 sets of indicators. These are combined into an overall "ease of doing business" ranking
Canada
- CanLII - Search regulations at federal and provincial levels.
- Choose Canada from left hand menu.
Select Statutues and Regulations
Use the full text search box for your keyword - telecommunications and deselect Statutes - Dept of Justice also lists regulations by title.
- CRTC provides regulations for broadcasting and telecommunications sectors. Select the sector and then Statutes and Regulations.
Citation Guide - Guide to citing business sources in Chicago Style by Harvard Business School
