Management 2210
Managers and Their Environment - A Research Guide
Part I - Environmental / SWOT Analysis
Conduct a SWOT analysis for each of your two companies. What are your firms' key internal strengths and weaknesses? What are their major external opportunities and threats?
- Business Source Elite
Select 'Company Profiles' in the Toolbar and find the Datamonitor Reports for your companies. See if there is a SWOT analysis in those reports for each of your firms.
- Standard & Poor's Industry Surveys
Go to the 'Search by Company' section and search by Ticker or Company Name to find the Industry Report for your companies. The 'Current Environment' and 'Industry Trends' sections will discuss the external opportunities and threats that affect your companies - the OT part of the SWOT analysis.
- Standard & Poor's Company Research
Search the Company Profile by Ticker or Company Name. This section will discuss the internal strengths and weaknesses of your companies - the SW part of the SWOT analysis.
Part II and III - Leadership and Comparative Analyses
Discuss the leaders that run your companies - their styles, traits, behavior - and how those leaders impact the success of the companies they manage. What do you consider to be the future outlook for these companies?
- Hoovers Online
The 'People' section for each of your companies will help you identify the leaders in your companies.
Part IV - Resource Evaluation
Cite your resources - see Citing Sources under 'Research Help' on the Library web site. Also explain why you used each resource in 2-3 sentences below each citation. Refer to some of the criteria below.
- Authority
- Type of publication
- Trade journal
- Business magazine
- Library database
- Author / publisher
- Sometimes you can Google the name of the author, magazine or publisher to find more about them.
- Currency
- Date of publication
- Content up-to-date
- Objectivity
- Point of view - 'inside' vs 'outside'
- Factual
- Use of statistics
- Scope/Coverage
- Length
- In-depth vs. summary overview
- Usefulness of resource for project
- Intended Audience
- General audience
- Business audience
- Specific trade or industry audience
Judy Wagner, Professor/Reference Librarian
SRC 3044
(630) 942-2021
wagnerj@cod.edu
