Library guide for Executive MBA in Indigenous Business and Leadership

On this page

Introduction

This guide will get you started with doing a literature search for your business topics.  It includes tips for literature searches, with emphasis on using business databases, which give you access to information not freely available on the open web.

Library services & other guides for IBL

You can contact Moninder Lalli, Librarian for Graduate Business Programs (moninder_lalli@sfu.ca) for assistance via email or to make an appointment. Or Ask a librarian.

Library services

Other guides useful for IBL students

Business information resources has side tabs with resources, including Facts & data sources, citing help, and Additional information.  This last tab includes provides tips and resources to search for different types of information, including Company information, Industry surveys, and Market research, as well as guides to assist with writing and making presentations: Business presentations, Business writing

Also check the BUEC Buzz blog to keep on top of new resources available for business research at the SFU Library.

Business plans & reference books

Terminology for searching

Terminology describing Indigenous Peoples has varied over time.  For better search results, consider adding multiple search terms, names of specific groups, place names and also variations in spelling of names. For more on terminology, consult the SFU Library guide First Nations Terminology  

Business & news databases

Search here to find scholarly journal articles, articles and reports from industry & trade publications. If the full-text of the article is not available within the database, then use the "Get@SFU" link to find a copy or to request through Library's Inter-Library Loans (ILL) Service (free)

  •  Business Source Complete (BSI platform version) is a key resource, and includes business journals (trade and scholarly), industry reports, and country profiles.
  • CBCA Full Text Business - (Proquest Platform) Canadian focus: Trade journals, general business publications, academic journals, topical journals, and professional publications.
  • IBISWorld Industry Reports - Analysis of Canadian, US, Chinese and global industries providing insight into current and future industry performance, changing trends, operating conditions and supply chain linkages. Each report covers the industry's description, outlook, and life cycle stage, as well as the competitive landscape, major companies, and key statistics.
  • Industry Information from Gale eBooks  
    Search through the Encyclopedia of Emerging Industries, the Encyclopedia of Global Industries, and the Encyclopedia of American Industries, among others. Start your search by entering the name of your commodity, product, or sector, or even just the name of a major company in the industry.
  • Plunkett's Research Online - access to many online  (PDF) industry almanacs in this series. Industries covered range from Artificial Intelligence to the Wireless, Wi-Fi, RFID & Cellular industry. The reports are global in scope, but tend to focus on the US.
  • Passport  - This database contains market reports offering strategic analysis of consumer lifestyles, service and retail markets, global industry overviews, and in-depth consumer markets, in addition to data on specific products, companies, and countries. Its main focus is on fast moving consumer goods (food, apparel, etc.).
  • Statista - Covers many market share topics and other statistical data on countries, consumers, industries, etc. 

News databases

Search news databases for companies, industries, products, consumers, trends, etc.

  • Factiva - Over 35,000 sources (newspapers, newswires, industry publications, websites, company reports, and more) from 200 countries, in 26 languages. Includes the Wall Street Journal.
  • Nexis Uni - International news coverage, business news, legal cases and law reports from early 1970's to present. Content is strongly American with significant coverage of Canadian and international topics. Formerly LexisNexis Academic.
  • Canadian Newsstream  - Full text access to major Canadian daily newspapers (such as the Globe and Mail, National Post, The Gazette (Montreal), and Vancouver Sun) as well as small market newspapers and weeklies published in Canada.
  • American Indian Newspapers Newspapers published in Turtle Island (North America) between 1828-2016. Topics include community news, health, education, cultural promotion, commercial enterprises, sovereignty, and more.

Indigenous topics databases 

NOTE: Start with Bibliography of Indigenous Peoples in North America (EbscoHost Platform) and then select additional databases (click "choose databases", which is above the search box), and select Business Source Complete  (EbscoHost platform version), Social Sciences Full Text, and/or other databases that are relevant for your topic (environment, political science, etc.)

EBSCO platform

  •  Bibliography of Indigenous Peoples in North America - is a key resource - Academic articles and Indigenous news sources.  Covers all aspects of Native North American culture, history, and life from the sixteenth century to the present.
  • Business Source Complete  (EbscoHost platform version) - is a key resource. and includes business journals (trade and scholarly), industry reports, and country profiles.
  • Social Sciences Full Text - social sciences journals
  • Academic Search Premier - Multidisciplinary index to academic & popular journals. Indexes many popular journals including the MacLean's Magazine.
  • America: History and Life Canadian & United States history
  • ECONLIT : Your best place to start with any research in Economics
  • Education Source - covering all levels of education from early childhood to higher education as well as multilingual education, health education and testing. Includes journals, books, conference papers, book reviews and educational tests.
  • Environment Complete - Comprehensive coverage (over 1,900 journals) in environmental and many related disciplines. Also available is fulltext access to over 200 monographs.
  • PsycINFO - use for consumer psychology, employees, etc. Contains Articles, books, book chapters, technical reports, and theses and dissertations in the field of psychology
  • Political Science Complete
    Provides access to journals, reference books, monographs, and conference papers on political topics with a worldwide focus, reflecting the globalization of contemporary political discourse.

Proquest platform

NOTE: Start with ProQuest Sociology Collection, and then also choose other databases (click on three horizontal bars, and then "change" databases, and then select databases such as CBCA Complete , Canadian Newsstream, etc.)

  •  ProQuest Sociology Collection - articles & dissertations. Includes articles on businesses, analysis of social issues such as racism, structural barriers, homelessness, drug use, etc. 
  • CBCA Complete - Comprehensive Canadian periodical collection for reference and current events. Publications include scholarly journal articles, trade publications, dissertations, books, newspapers and magazines.
  • CBCA Full Text Business - Canadian focus: Trade journals, general business publications, academic journals, topical journals, and professional publications.
  • Canadian Newsstream  - Full text access to major Canadian daily newspapers (such as the Globe and Mail, National Post, The Gazette (Montreal), and Vancouver Sun) as well as small market newspapers and weeklies published in Canada.
  • Native Health Databases - Bibliographic information and abstracts of health-related articles, reports, surveys, and other resource documents on the health and health care of American Indians, Alaska Natives, and Canadian First Nations.
  • Canada Commons (formerly, Canadian Electronic Library from desLibris) - for public policy documents from Canadian institutes, think-tanks and research groups.
  • CANLII - Largest free web resource providing access to legal documents from Canada's federal, provincial and territorial governments, including laws & legislation, and cases.
  • Canadian Research Index (1982-) Access to "all depository publications of research value issued by both the federal government and the ten provinces and three territories".
    • Older reports are on Microlog fiche, which is very useful, as many are not available on government sites or in print in libraries. For relevant reports, note down the Microlog Number.  Look for the Microlog fiche on 6th floor of Bennett Library (Burnaby Campus). They are stored by Microlog number, who will then request a special loan. Example:  1992's "Native women and aboriginal treaty rights : a discussion paper"  Microlog number: 92-04323)

Other database guides: Databases for Indigenous topics, Databases for Law, Databases for Resource & Environmental Management (REM),  Databases for Health Sciences, Canadian Studies, 

Google Scholar (topic & citation searches)

Google Scholar

 Google Scholar  Be sure to access Google Scholar via the Library's website to obtain full-text of articles subscribed by SFU Library.  Use the "Get@SFU" link to search for the full-text. Use the Google Scholar library links and button guide to save the settings for "Get@SFU" on your own computer.

Search tips for more effective searching
  intitle: limits search results to words in the "title" (may include the leading paragraph)
  site:.ca limits seach results to Canadian URLs
  Use capital OR within parentheses to combine synonyms or related words
  Don't use AND to combine different concepts, Google assumes an "AND" when two words are next to each other
  Don't use asterisk (*) to search for various endings or words, instead, spell out the word

Guide: Search tips for Google, Google Scholar, DuckDuckGo, and other search engines

Search by topic

 

Citation searching

It is a useful strategy to check to see if a relevant book, report or journal article has been cited by anyone else since it's initial publication date. Enter the "citation" into Google Scholar. If your citation appears in the results list, check beneath it for "Cited by."

Examples:

"Cited by"

"Cited by"

"Cited by"

"Cited by"

  For more on measuring the quantitative impact of articles, journals, or authors, see Impact metrics.

Google searching

Topic: Indigenous land claims in British Columbia

  • (aboriginal OR indigenous) land claims (BC OR British Columbia)
      Results

Topic: Indigenous consulting / entrepreneurship

Topic: Publications by industry associations, websites of groups, etc.

Topic: Documents from a particular country's domain.  Country domain codes used by Google: Web country codes
The example below is for Canada, with country code of ".ca". 

  • site:.ca (elderly OR seniors OR aged) intitle:families (Indigenous OR Aboriginal)
      Results

Citation searching

  • Citation searching is a useful strategy to check to see if a work that is relevant for your research has been cited by anyone else since it was initially published.   Enter the "citation" information into Google Scholar, using the link from SFU Library.  If your citation appears in the results list, check beneath it for "Cited by."

"Cited by"

"cited by"

  For more on measuring the quantitative impact of articles, journals, or authors, see Impact metrics.

Google NGO and IGO search engines

Library books, journals, government reports etc.

BLOG: Indigenous business books & e-books

Use the Library Catalogue Search  to find books, government reports, etc.  After searching by keywords, the results can be limited by "Subject" (left-hand side), resource type, date, etc. (see left hand side of search results)

Sample searches:

Combine different concepts using AND
Combine same concepts using OR
Use quotation marks to search for a phrase
Use brackets for synonyms
Use asterisk (*) for different endings of words

Note:  For Catalogue Search, when combining concepts, use CAPITAL letters ( "OR", "AND")

TIP: When you find a relevant book, try clicking on the "Subject" link in the full Library record for more books on that topic.

Selected subject headings of interest: 

For more:

The Library Catalogue Search Guide provides search tips for effective searching, including power searching, and strategies for finding books and journal articles.

Government info & statistics

British Columbia

Canada

Other guides: 

Past MBA projects & theses - SFU First Nations Scholarly Community

University research portals with a focus on Indigenous topics

Two resources for information on key topics relating to Indigenous peoples of Canada:

IPortal - Indigenous Studies Research Tool
From the University of Saskatchewan Library.

Indigenous Foundations Portal
Developed by the First Nations Studies Program at the University of British Columbia. 

Presentation skills

See the Student Learning Commons for expert and friendly help with academic writing, learning, and study strategies.

Business tutorials and library guides 

Before you start  searching for information, please watch these four tutorials to save you time and effort.  Created by Mark Bodnar, SFU Business and Economics Librarian, the tutorials provide very useful tips and search strategies to business information.

Actions vs Words: Understanding a Company's Strategies Using News Sources  (11.35 mins.)
"This one is about using news sources to gather information about what a company has been doing so that you can infer the company's strategy, rather than relying solely on the company's explicit statements or third-party analysis." [Mark Bodnar] Also includes a very good demo of using Factiva (business news) database.

Secondary Research for Business Decisions: Foundations for Estimates (8.02 mins.)
To cover the all-important principles that underlie many of the presentations I do in Beedie classes. [Mark Bodnar]

For more on secondary research, try Mark's 12-part series of posts "on research to support new outdoor recreation services, but the steps involved are common to many research topics and the advice I've provided is based on my meetings with thousands of researchers over the years." [Mark Bodnar]

Spying on a Conversation: Literature Review Assignments in Business (18.25 mins.)
"Provides lots of tips and tricks to make the research for your next literature review assignment much more efficient and effective" [Mark Bodnar]

An earlier video tutorial, Only 4 Steps: Researching in Academic Business Journals (6.30 mins.), provides basic instruction on how to break down your topic and do a literature search.

Library guides

Inter-Library Loans (ILL Service)

If the item you want is not available at SFU, it can be requested from another library (Interlibrary Loan) and delivered to Belzberg Library. This usually takes one to two weeks. See Borrowing materials from other Libraries for more information.

  • Request an Interlibrary Loan for books or articles not available at the SFU Library. Most article indexes also allow you to request copies of journal articles directly online, using the "where can I get this?" link. For more information, check the Interlibrary Loan guide.
  • COPPUL Card
    Allows you to get a library card from UBC or other post-secondary libraries. You may borrow books directly from UBC and many other academic libraries. Obtain a reciprocal borrowing card at the Belzberg Library Loans desk.

Writing help

Research Commons writing help

For writing support services, check: 

For citing help, see the SFU Library guide: Citation Guide for Business Sources.

Guides on writing

 Business writing and Academic writing resources

Features:

  • Twenty-two succinct style principles.
  • Advice on culturally appropriate publishing practices, including how to collaborate with Indigenous Peoples, when and how to seek the advice of Elders, and how to respect Indigenous Oral Traditions and Traditional Knowledge.
  • Terminology to use and to avoid.
  • Advice on specific editing issues, such as biased language, capitalization, and quoting from historical sources and archives.
  • Case studies of projects that illustrate best practices.