BUS W300: New Venture Management

You can use Reference USA or Simply Analytics to get lists of companies by city or zipcode. Search by keyword, or by NAIC or SIC code for particular industries.

Who creates company information?

Company information is generated by a variety of entities and comes in different formats.  The company itself is an obvious source of information (e.g., company website, SEC filings, press releases, etc.), but outside parties also gather and publish company information (e.g., newspaper and trade articles, analyst reports, etc.). Some company information cannot be obtained freely online (which is why we pay for company-focused databases). A lot of company information is proprietary (e.g., product level sales, manufacturing processes, etc.) and can not be found at all.

Public Companies:

A public company has sold a portion of the business to the public via an IPO (initial public offering) and offers securities (e.g., stocks, shares, bonds, loans, etc.) for sale to the general public, typically through a stock exchange or over-the-counter market.

Domestic, public companies must file financial statements with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission and issue annual reports. A current annual reports can typically be found on a company's website. In addition, public companies tend to be written about more in the business and popular press. These factors lead to large amounts of company financial and business information being made available to the public and outside parties.

A ticker symbol (example: Apple Inc. = AAPL) is an abbreviation used to uniquely identify publicly traded shares of a particular stock on a stock exchange. A good way to find a ticker symbol is to use Google (search: Apple ticker). Many library databases can be searched by ticker symbol, which can lead to a more precise set of search results.

Private Companies:

Ownership of a private company is held by a handful of people, often the founder and a few others. Private companies typically do not file financial statements with the SEC or disclose a lot of information to avoid leaking secrets to competitors. For these reasons, researching a private company is more challenging. You usually will not find extensive financial information for private companies. A current, annual sales or sales volume figure is the statistic most often reported. You may need to accept a revenue range or estimate or even inferred revenue based on information known or presumed. Depending on size, there is usually less published about private companies. For smaller, private companies much of the information that can be found is produced by the company itself.

Research a private company by:

• Company website
• Primary research: Research that is conducted by you through surveys or interviews or observation.
• Company profile: Library databases house some sales and employment data for private companies.
• Proxy companies: Research larger, more established companies in the same industry or market.

Subsidiaries:

A subsidiary is a company that is completely or partly owned and wholly controlled by another company. A parent company is a company that owns enough voting stock in another firm to control management and operations. Often financial data and other information for a subsidiary is limited and/or wrapped up with parent company information. You will want to look at both parent and subsidiary to obtain a complete picture. The Corporate Affiliations database linked below provides information on company hierarchies and some subsidiary data:

For company directories, profiles and analyses, you can start with these resources:

More Company Resources

For industry and market reports and analyses, use these resources:

For information on demographics, marketing strategy and market research, start with these resources:

More marketing resources

To access news articles and trade publication for background information, trends and case studies, use these resources:

Citation involves properly crediting the authors of information sources used in a paper or presentation. You will need to cite if sources are directly quoted and/or paraphrased or if reading a source contributed to the ideas presented. 

Always cite your sources.

Different disciplines use certain citation styles. Use these Quick Style Guides, the full citation manuals, or ask library staff for citation assistance.

Quick Style Guides

• APA Style Guide
• Business/SPEA Citation Guide
• Purdue OWL APA Guide
• MLA Style Quick Guide
• Chicago Style Quick Guide
• APA Style Quick Guide
• Citing U.S. Government Publications

Full Style Manuals

Other Citation Resources:

• What are Citations and Why Should I Use Them?
• Quoting vs. Paraphrasing
• Citation Managers