Introduction to Business Research

LI KA SHING LIBRARY STAFF TRAINING Introduction to Business Research Ruth A. Pagell July 2010 Singapore Management University Research Guide

LI KA SHING LIBRARY Business Research
Course Outline for Business Research
Concepts, Context and Content
Introduction
Business Research
Information Resources
Journals
Books, Reports and Finding Aids
Contacts (people)
Business Websites and Business Researchers
Database
News
Availability
Introduction

BUSINESS RESEARCH Other Modules
Search and Retrieval – web and commercial databases
Companies
Accounting and Corporate Finance
Financial Markets
Competitive Intelligence
Industry and Comparisons
Marketing and Demographics
Economics and Data
International Business and Foreign Trade
Introduction

OBJECTIVES for Business Research
Introduce business research as a
process
Discover the scope of business
information
Identify major business information
providers
Introduction

SKILLS OF THE Research Information Professional
Familiarity with business information
products and services
Ability to organize, access, retrieve and evaluate
business resources
Knowledge of business information pitfalls
Awareness of your organization’s strategy
and your users’ needs
Awareness of trends and issues in the
library/information profession
Introduction

ROLES OF THE Research Information Professional
Reference Librarian – interviewing and answering questions
Consultant – Working with clients to meet ongoing research needs
Trainer – Teaching users and other staff members to use tools themselves
Marketer – Learning client needs and proactively informing them of your services
Introduction

ROLES OF Users of Business Information
Faculty, researchers and analysts
Students
CI, KM professionals
Consultants
Investors
Journalists
Job seekers
Governments and NGOs
Lawyers
Business information professionals
Introduction

BUSINESS RESEARCH as a Process
Delivery of more timely, more accurate
more focused organizational knowledge
Better interactions with your users
and more buy-in
More productive effort
Business Research

WHY DO BUSINESS RESEARCH Business Research

BUSINESS RESEARCH TRIANGLE Country and Trade Resources Company Resources Industry Resources News Periodical Articles Research Reports People Data Business Research

WHY BUSINESS QUESTIONS are Different
Time value
Vocabulary
Number of commercial and free sources
Business Research

RESEARCH Identify Types of Questions
Conceptual
Analytical
Historical
Data and Factual
Business Research

RESEARCH Conceptual Questions Q: Explain the fundamental theories of TQM Q: What are the underlying assumptions for Porter’s 5 forces? Business Research

RESEARCH Analytical Questions Q: What effect do integrated resorts have on the economy of Singapore? Q: Does the Singapore real estate market behave like the economic theories of supply and demand? Q : How do Porter’s 5 forces apply to competitive intelligence? Business Research

RESEARCH Historical Questions Q: What was Singapore’s position in world trade in the early 20 th century? Q: Track the rise and fall of the U.S. steel industry in the 20 th century Business Research

RESEARCH Factual Questions Q: Who are Singapore’s Top 1000 companies? Q: Is it true that Singapore has more internet users then any other ASEAN country? Q: What companies are importing and exporting soybeans in Southeast Asia? Business Research

RESEARCH Data / Statistical Questions Q: List the monthly Sing$ / US$ exchange rate from 1990 Q: How many internet users are there in Singapore? Q: How many soybeans are being imported into Singapore? Malaysia? Q: What is Singapore’s GDP? Business Research

RESEARCH Evaluation of Questions Data - Is it answerable? I want monthly Gross Domestic Product (GDP) Data – is it correct? I want 2009 GDP data for Singapore Is it reasonable? I want free commercial market research reports How current is current? I want breaking news Is it from a reliable source? Business Research

INFORMATION RESOURCES Used in Business Research
Journals – Magazines
Books
Finding Aids
Specialized Reports
Newspapers and Newswires
Data
Contacts
Directories. Dictionaries & Encyclopedias
Web Sites
Information Resources

INFORMATION RESOURCES Which are Important?
KM STUDENTS (n=16)
Web sites
Contacts *
Data *
Special Reports
Journals *
Finding Aids
Directories, etc.
News
Books *
Library Staff (n=17)
Journals *
Web sites
Books *
Finding Aids
Special Reports
Contacts *
News
Data *
Directories, etc
* Noticeable ranking differences between KM students and library staff Information Resources 6.38 6.00 5.94 5.75 5.56 4.75 4.25 3.25 2.94 7.50 5.35 5.29 5.28 5.19 5.06 4.82 3.38 2.88

INFORMATION RESOURCES Timeliness of Business Sources Investment Bank Report CPI Unemploy-ment Journal to Database Trade Magazine Monthly Stock Quotes Press Releases Company filings Company Annuals Market Research Report Foreign Exchange GDP Quarterly National Annual Data IGO Compiled Data; GDP actual Website Indexing Working Paper Academic Article Academic Journal Media News News – paper Web Directory Trade Book Print Directory Academic Book Hourly to Real Time Monthly to Daily Less than a year 1 to 2 Years > 2 years

INFORMATION RESOURCES Journals Top Business Publications downloaded from EBSCO or Proquest Business News Magazines Economist Business Week Forbes Fortune Newspapers USA Today (Top Download - >12,400) Wall Street Journal Eastern Edition Financial Times Trade & Industry Publications Advertising Age WWD (Women’s Wear Daily) Computerworld downloaded between January – April 2010

INFORMATION RESOURCES JOURNALS Top Business Publications downloaded from EBSCO or Proquest or Science Direct Popular Business Journals Harvard Business Review (>11,000) Scholarly Journals Academy of Management Journal ( >1100 in EBSCO ) Journal of Business Ethics Management Science Journal of Marketing (>540 in EBSCO ) Journal of Financial Economics (SD) Journal of Asian Studies

INFORMATION RESOURCES Books Characteristics of the Business Book Popular : “How To”, written by consultants; ephemeral for latest trends, basic understanding How to tell anyone anything Scholarly : Written by academics and researchers; often dated; for conceptual, historical and analytical questions The rule of three

INFORMATION RESOURCES Books Characteristics of the Business Book Popular : “How To”, written by consultants; ephemeral for latest trends, basic understanding Scholarly : Written by academics and researchers; often dated; for conceptual, historical and analytical questions Reviews and the Business Book Favorable and unfavorable book reviews : A quantitative study (1995) “ Previous writers have consistently found a high percentage of favorable book reviews in trade and scholarly journals. “

INFORMATION RESOURCES Specialized Reports Market Research Reports Investment Bank Analysis Industry Surveys White Papers

INFORMATION RESOURCES Finding Aids Indexes & Abstracts Research guides FAQs

INFORMATION RESOUCES Directories, Dictionaries and Encyclopedias
Companies
Associations
Professional Bodies :
Library Association of Singapore
Trade Associations :
Singapore Clock and Watch Association

INFORMATION RESOURCES Contacts
Other people in
your office
your organization
your industry
your professional organizations
Social networks
Friends and family

INFORMATION RESOURCES Contacts
People
Professional contacts - Linked In
Websites - Jigsaw ; ZoomInfo
LexisNexis> Legal >Reference>Directories
Zoom People Information

INFORMATION RESOURCES Directories - People
Jigsaw.com
LexisNexis Legal >Reference>Directories>Zoom People Information

INFORMATION RESOURCES Business Librarianship
Mary Ellen Bates – columns in Online, E-Content (formerly Database)
Marydee Ojala –T he dollar sign column in Online, E-Content, Database
Journal of Business and Finance Librarianship ( EBSCO LISTA) embargo
Business Information Review ( Sage)
The Information Advisor’s BestBizWeb
Best of the Best Business Websites (Free Resources)(2009) Reference & User Services Quarterly Fall2009 49(1)52;63,64 First annual – very limited ( PQD ,EBSCO)

INFORMATION RESOURCES Sources of Business Web sites
CEOExpress, the executive’s internet
Gary Price’s List of Lists (and link to Gary Price’s Resource Shelf
NOTE: While lists may be dated, they serve as a finding aid to sources
Scout Report and Archives is a database of over nine year’s worth of annotations to carefully selected Internet sites and mailing lists
World Bank Documents and Reports
Doing Business 2010 projec t arranged by country or region or topic (World Bank )
GlobalEDG E, from Michigan State’s CIBER initiative , with information, insights, and learning resources on global business activities
.

INFORMATION RESOURCES Key Business Database Providers
Dow Jones / Factiva
LexisNexis
EBSCO/Business Source Premier
Proquest/ABI Inform
EconLit*
Thomson Reuters/ISI Web of Science*
Thomson Reuters/ Thomson One/Research
Bloomberg
Euromonitor* (GMID)
Datamonitor –MarketLine
*
EIU /Economist * Intelligence Unit
OneSource
Emerging Markets Information Service (Internet Securities)
World Development Indicators (WDI from World Bank) *
International Financial Statistics (IFS from International Monetary Fund)
CEIC (data aggregator – from Internet Securities)
Standard & Poors*
Mergent*

INFORMATION RESOURCES Data /Statistics
Financial
Corporate finance; security markets
Economic
National accounts, “cost of living”
Demographic
People, income, education
Trade
Imports, exports, balance of trade

INFORMATION RESOURCES News
NEWSPAPERS
NEWSWIRES
MAGAZINES
BROADCAST TRANSCRIPTS
TV STATIONS
RADIO STATIONS
WEB SITES
COMMERICAL SERVICES

INFORMATION RESOURCES NEWS
Characteristics of news websites
Frequency of update; currency of news –
Access rights – free, registration, fee-based
Headlines, lead paragraph or whole article
Selected articles?
Date range of available articles
Media- TV, radio, video
Number of languages for searching, reading, listening

YAHOO Google Straits Times

INFORMATION RESOURCES News 13:03 Singapore Standard Time, 12 June BBC Factiva

AVAILABILITY of Business Information Free Public Information A company phone number A listed company’s sales figures Information for a price: A private company’s sales figures/credit rating Proprietary Information - not available for any price - Coca-Cola’s formula * The Atlanta Journal and Constitution, June 26, 1999, Inspector Clouseau strikes again! Coke recipe found, Charles W. Holmes,

AVAILABILITY of Business Information Origin : Press release, government, internal document; private citizens on the web CONTINUUM Industry: Major manufacturing (textiles)…..wholesale/retail/service …..sector Organization Type: Listed company… Private company… SME…Partnership… Nonprofit Country of origin : US, EU, Asia / Group of 8 / developing Cost : Free… free with registration…commercial rates

Match the Questions
1. What effect have strategic alliances had on the airline industry
2.. Who invented Coca-Cola
3. What is the population density of Singapore
4. Trace the globalization of the Korean automobile industry
5. Describe the Random Walk theory
Conceptual
Analytical
Historical
Factual
Data
Questions Types

TRENDS
Disaggregation of standard resources
Lack of distinction between data, information, knowledge and opinion
Open access to scholarly information
Toggling between commercial and free sources
Research is interactive – go where it takes you!

Introduction to Business Research

by R Pagell on Jul 17, 2010

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