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Business, digital business, management and accounting: Key resources

A guide to finding information in business, digital business, management and accounting. Includes links to key resources and sources of help.

Use the resources listed on this page to find relevant information on topics studied in the Henley Business School. They will give you access to both primary and secondary sources of information.

  • Primary sources - these are first hand accounts of research that has been undertaken and written by the researchers themselves.
  • Secondary sources - these describe, summarize, or discuss information or details originally presented in another source. For example books, review articles, and systematic reviews.

There are also resources that provide data such as company information, and market and industry analysis so you can find out

  • Company details - where they are, what they do, who the directors are?  What is the structure of the company (e.g. parent companies, subsidiary companies)
  • Financial data - is the company making a profit?  What is their turnover?  Where is their most recent annual report and accounts
  • Industry analysis - how does the company compare to its peers?  Who are the competitors?  What is the market like for this industry?

Key resources

Journal articles are usually short papers on specific topics. They are published in issues or parts of journals (also called periodicals) which appear regularly. Use articles to find:

  • up-to-date research in your subject
  • reviews of developments in your subject - these review articles include extensive lists of references

You can look up a company on these databases to find basic contact details, what the company does, the structure of the company etc.You can also use these resources to find financial information about a company. You can find out about profits, turnover and numbers of employees and other details. Some of these resources enable you to create lists of companies that match certain criteria.

Market research is when information is gathered together to analyse a market or industry.  Usually, you can find out target audiences, the size of the market, top competitors and consumer behaviour, depending on the market, product or industry that you are researching.

Websites

Searching for 'Global South' publications

To present fairer, balanced academic work, it is important to include academic literature from around the world, representing all backgrounds. However, it can be difficult to find Global South examples from within English language databases with currently more Global North examples. This tab lists alternative search terms and strategies that might help us pick out Global South material. Use the other tab in this box to try useful resources and database features.

Definitions: Global South is a term currently used to mean countries of  Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Caribbean. Global North is used to refer to countries of North America and Europe but also Australia and New Zealand, with stong economies and influence.

Remember to include searching tricks as used in examples below:

  • "speech marks" to search for phrases
  • truncate to retrieve alternate endings: Africa* retrieves Africa, African, Africaans
  • Use wildcard (often ? or #, but check database Help) for alternate letter spellings or plurals.
  • List alternatives in brackets with OR in between

Geographical terms

  • Include individual country or regional names that might occur in reference records. 
    • For example: Africa* OR “East Africa” OR “West Africa” OR ​“sub-Saharan” OR [Individual country names]​
       
  • Country grouping terms and acronyms include:
    • BRICS OR Brazil OR Russia OR India OR China OR "South Africa"
    • MENA OR "Middle East" OR "North Africa"
       
  • Development-related terms and acronyms include:
    • LEDC OR "Less Economically Developed Countries"
    • LDC OR "Least developed countries"
    • LIC OR "Low Income Countries"
    • LMIC OR "Low Middle Income Countries"
    • "Medium/Low Human Development"
    • "Unicef Programme Countries"
    • Outdated terms: When searching for older material, you might include terms used historically but now thought derogatory. For instance: "developing countries" or "third world countries" (that is, neither 'Western' or 'Soviet' powers).
       
  • Use 'local' place names, as used by people who live there (such as “South-East Asia”​) rather than, or maybe as well as, names allocated by people from another part of the world (such as "the Far East").
     
  • Exclude country names with NOT, using brackets to ensure the correct term is excluded.
    • For example: (Africa* OR “East Africa”) NOT Kenya
       
  • International terms: Only if an article is especially addressing international issues would it use words you can search for like
    • world OR "world-wide" OR international OR global
       
  • If addressing an imbalance of power/privilege, articles might use terms such as:
    • “post-colonial*” OR gobali?ation [if ? is wildcard standing for s or z]
    • developing OR "less-developed" or underdeveloped

US/UK spelling and vocabulary

Be sure to incorporate in your searches different UK and American English terms and spellings, so as not to omit research from countries using one or the other language form. List alternatives with OR or insert a 'wildcard' or truncation term. Check the help on the database you are searching to find out if wildcards are supported and which symbol to use. For example:

  • sidewalk OR pavement OR footpath
  • organisation OR organization - an alterative search could be organi?ation  [If ? is wildcard standing for s or z]

Objective or subjective terms

Search for objective or even biased terms. For instance:

  • curriculum AND (change OR reform OR fail*)

Decolonising literature searching, a detailed guide from Lancaster University Library, may provide further ideas 

Use the Scopus 'Researcher Discovery' tab and limit by country of origin to connect with target areas and people.

Web of Science alows you to filter results by 'Countries/Regions'.

 

Help videos

You will need to login using your University email address and password to view the video. For the best experience please view on a larger screen such as a tablet or laptop instead of a mobile phone.

How to run a basic search in Orbis and FAME:

Creating a list of companies in Orbis and FAME:

D&B Hoover - basic searches:

Market research information databases:

IBISworld basic search:

Mintel reports basic search:

Videos: doing your literature search

This playlist of two videos shows you how to prepare for and perform a literature search. The first video introduces literature searches and their role. The second video covers using the search operators AND and OR to create a search statement, and explains the role of wildcards and truncation in constructing a comprehensive search. This information is also available in written guides - see the links below. 

If you are unable to view these videos on YouTube they are also available on YuJa or Stream (University username and password required):

Related guides

Getting items not held at Reading

Map of the south of the UKOur Inter-Library Loans service can get articles, books and other publications not held at Reading from other libraries (usually from the British Library).

For more information see our webpages: