Is (enter company/brand name) Canadian?

The hottest business research question these days, at least north of the 49th parallel, is whether a company or brand is Canadian. Defining "Canadian" can often be difficult (polite? open to multiculturalism? likes hockey?), but one would think it would be a straightforward yes/no answer when it comes to businesses and brands. Sadly, as is so often the case, it's usually more complex than we expect or want.

Consider the following news item from CBC: Is Tim Hortons Canadian? The author does a great job of digging through Tim's history & current situation to try to determine the company's "home" country.  More importantly (IMO), she highlights the many ways to approach such a question: 
 

To that list, I'd add a couple more points to consider: 

•   What is the purpose of the question? 
  If the answer is needed to take action in a situation where Canada is at existential risk economically and politically, I'd argue that the core questions to consider are those that involve the flow of money. How much of the money you spend on Timbits stays in Canada in the form of wages, taxes, dividends, etc.? How much $$ leaves our country, and of that, how much flows to the country immediately to our south? 
  
  Questions about intangibles — values, history, etc. — might warm my heart, but a well-woven brand story can conceal more urgent, economically relevant information.
   
• How Canadian does a company need to be? 
  Many companies rely on investors, parts/ingredients, suppliers, etc. based in other countries, or split manufacturing, packaging, and distribution functions across multiple countries. It may be impossible to meet some of your needs with purely Canadian products/firms. If all of the firms in a given sector have at least some unique and evolving international aspects to their operations, how do you compare and rank them? Prioritizing purchases in such an apples/oranges world is not simple.

Now that we have a list of questions to ask about companies and a better understanding of the nuances involved in interpreting the answers, let's consider the sources and search strategies we'd use to research each question. Here, again, things are more complex than I'd like... 

Information is clearly needed, but it's not always available. 

If a company is publicly traded, they have to release at least some information about topics such as major investors, joint ventures, and high-level financials. The availability of some information can obscure the fact that not all company details are made public: you may not find information on all of their international manufacturing contracts, for instance, and such arrangements can change quickly so may be outdated even if they are published. 

Finding information on privately held companies and their products (i.e., the vast majority of all companies!) is even more difficult: I often mention in classes that when researching company strategies, you need to look at...

• everything the company says (press releases, their website content, interviews in the news),
• everything they do (actual actions taken: products launched, markets entered, divisions shuttered/opened, people hired),
• and everything everyone else says about them (esp. observations from industry insiders via associations and industry magazines),

and even then you'll rarely learn everything you hope to know. At best, you'll need to make well-founded inferences based on all of the peripheral information you've gathered. In my experience, much of the same advice applies when you're determining the nationality of a company or product.

To learn more about the search strategies and resources I use when researching companies, start with the following SFU Library research guides and videos: 

• Company Information
• Industry Surveys
• Marketing Research
• Actions vs Words: Understanding a Company's Strategies Using News Sources (video)

There are an increasing number of apps and many retail stores are adding maple leaves to their shelves to help people make informed choices, but as the CBC article pointed out, it's complex. That doesn't mean it's not worth trying though!

Again, I wish there was a single source that would provide all the details Canadians are looking for concerning current ownership, supply chains, parts & ingredients, etc., but I am not aware of a single, perfect source that will accurately and completely address all companies and products. I am, however, always interested in chatting about such things. Reach out if you want to talk about company/brand research techniques and sources.

-- Mark
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Mark Bodnar
Business & Economics Librarian
mbodnar@sfu.ca