Researching Companies: Databases
The library databases provide some great options for researching different companies. A few options are Gale In Context: Opposing Viewpoints, Gale Business Insights, Academic Search Complete, and Business Source Complete.
- In Context: Opposing Viewpoints This link opens in a new window
Opposing Viewpoints offers material to support differing views to help develop critical thinking skills on thousands of current social topics in the forms of primary source documents, statistics, websites and multimedia. Find overviews, news, and opinions on hundreds of today's important social issues, including racism, capital punishment, global warming, and voting rights with reference sources, newspaper and magazine articles, scholarly journals, court cases, government documents, viewpoints, maps, images, audio, video and websites.
- Business Insights This link opens in a new window
Gale Business: Insights empowers users with the necessary tools to research and effectively interpret international business topics. Access more than 430,000 detailed company profiles with company financial data, in-depth country overviews, and comprehensive industry profiles to stay current with the ever-evolving business landscape.
- Academic Search Complete This link opens in a new window
Academic Search Complete is the world's most valuable and comprehensive scholarly, multi-disciplinary full-text database, with more than 8,500 full-text periodicals, including more than 7,300 peer-reviewed journals. Indexing and abstracts for more than 12,500 journals and more than 13,200 publications including monographs, reports, conference proceedings. The database features PDF content going back as far as 1887, with the majority of full text titles in native (searchable) PDF format. Searchable cited references are provided for more than 1,400 journals.
- Business Source Complete This link opens in a new window
Business Source Complete includes full text business journals and magazines, such as the articles of Harvard Business Review, California Management Review, Sloan Management Review, as well as hundreds of other business journals and publications, covering all disciplines of business, including marketing, management, accounting, banking, finance and more. This robust business database contains indexing and abstracts for the most important scholarly business journals back as far as 1886. In addition, searchable cited references are provided for more than 1,300 journals.
Researching Companies: Understanding Results
You can search for specific companies by typing the company name in the search bar.
The different content types you can find from this topic page include:
a. Featured Viewpoints: quick essays highlighting differing opinions within the topic, handpicked by Gale
b. Viewpoints: more opinions on the topic
c. References: overviews of the topic
d. Statistics and Infographics: graphs, charts, and data to support your research
e. Multimedia: pictures, videos, podcasts, and audio
f. News and Magazines: recent coverage and in-depth analysis
g. Academic journals: scholarly articles written by scholars in the field, often peer-reviewed
Once you choose a content type, the list of results will be to the left. The title, author(s), and information will be listed. There will also be an indication in the article is peer-reviewed as seen below.
You can filter the results further by the following:
a. Publication Date: You can limit the results to a specific date range. Depending on the assignment consider limiting to the last ten years.
b. Subjects: Provides a list of subjects and allows you to search for specific subjects within the results.
c. Document Type: Provides a list of document types and allows you to choose the types of source.
d. Peer-Reviewed: You can check off whether you want only peer-reviewed articles.
One particularly useful asset of the database Business Insights is the Deep Insight into Companies Around the World. This gives users an expert analysis of various companies that include the following:
- SWOT analysis
- Financial statements
- Case studies
- Articles from academic journals, trade magazines, news outlets
From the home page of Business Insights, there is a list of the most searched companies. If you don't see the company you would like to research, there is the option to Browse All Companies.
The database has a list of 544,338 companies, which you can browse or you can type a company name into the search bar.
Once you've selected a company to research, you will find a breakdown of:
- Company information
- Historical revenue
- Competitors
- Industry ranking
If you scroll down further, you will find a list of content types that are available.
Before searching on Academic Search Complete, you can add other databases to your search to expand the scope of your search. One database that can be helpful to add is Business Source Complete. You can add this source by selecting Choose Databases above the search bar.
Once the window pops up, you can select Business Source Complete from the list and select the yellow OK. This will allow you to search in both Academic Search Complete and Business Source Complete at the same time.
One you find and article, the icon next to each result indicates the source type.
Information regarding the author, journal, publication date, and page numbers appear in the first line. This information will be important for citing this source later if you choose to use it.
The abstract or description of the article starts on the following line.
Click on the title to view the detailed record and read the full abstract. Subject terms are searches that would lead to this article. You can use these to help you understand what you will find in this article. Subject terms can also help you think of other ways to search for the information you are looking for.
If the article has images, charts, or graphs, thumbnails will be shown.
Full text articles can be in HTML format, PDF format, or both. To access the article, click on the blue hyperlinked title, HTML Full Text, or PDF Full Text, or use the icon in the left side panel.
