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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.

Research help and library services

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

• Belzberg Library Information for Graduate Business Programs for details of library services through the Belzberg Library, which is located in downtown Vancouver
• Services of Indigenous Students which provides details about library services 
  • Telebook: Delivery of Library books and materials to your home

Researching business information: Getting started

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, Business presentations, Business writing and more.

  Depending on your topic, you may also wish to consult other guides for other subjects, such as First Nations, Government resources, Resource and Environmental Management. 

• Guide for "BUS 615 Marketing" has a focus on aboriginal tourism.
• The Indigenous business resources guide provides links to information related to Indigenous associations, directories, etc. 

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

• BUEC Buzz Blogpost: Business and Indigenous Communities in BC
• The UBC's Small Business Accelerator guides assist with finding information on businesses in British Columbia
• Welcome video -- for a quick introduction to using the Library website search engine 

Video tutorials for finding business information

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.

Terminology

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 databases

  Business Source Complete is a key resource, and includes business journals (trade and scholarly), industry reports, and country profiles. 
Start here to search most business topics or for specific journal articles.  See Only 4 Steps: Researching in Academic Business Journals (6.30 minute video tutorial), to learn how to break down your topic and do a literature search.

Business databases by area of concentration

• Accounting, Business Administration, Finance, HR/Management and Organizational Studies, International Business, Management Information Systems, Management and Organizational Studies, Marketing
• News resources: Finding newspaper articles and newspapers, SAGE Business Cases, Technology & Operations Management

Databases for Indigenous topics

For assistance in search techniques, try: How to find journal articles  
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

For business topic, normally one would start with the Business Source Complete database since it indexes business and economics journal. However, for topics related to Indigenous Peoples, it may be helpful to start with Bibliography of Native North Americans, and then search "multiple databases" at once, by choosing other databases (click on the link for "choose databases" (just above the search box), and select Business Source Complete and other databases, such as Environment Complete, Political Science Complete, America History & Life, etc. 

• Bibliography of Native North Americans - Academic articles and Indigenous news sources.  Covers all aspects of Native North American culture, history, and life.
• CBCA Complete  Canada's reference and current events - scholarly journal articles, trade publications, dissertations, books, newspapers and magazines.
• Canadian Research Index Canadian government 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.
• Canadian Electronic Library from desLibris  Includes some full text public policy documents from Canadian institutes, think-tanks, and research groups.
• Environment Complete - Comprehensive coverage (over 1,900 journals) in environmental and many related disciplines. Also available is fulltext access to over 200 monographs.
• ProQuest Sociology Collection - articles & dissertations. Includes articles on businesses, analysis of social issues such as racism, structural barriers, homelessness, drug use, etc.  
• PsycINFO - use for consumer psychology, employees, etc. Contains Articles, books, book chapters, technical reports, and theses and dissertations in the field of psychology
• 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
• 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.
• Google Scholar  Be sure to access Google Scholar via the Library's website to ensure you see the "Where can I get this?" links that will take you to the full text SFU offers. In addition, you could also save special settings in Google by adding "library links" so that the "Get@SFU" link" will appear besides the search results. Guide: Google Scholar library links and button
  • 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."

Example: Trosper, R., Nelson, H., Hoberg, G., Smith, P., & Nikolakis, W. (2008). Institutional determinants of profitable commercial forestry enterprises among First Nations in Canada. Canadian Journal Of Forest Research, 38(2), 226-238. doi:10.1139/X07-167
"Cited by"

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

• Google Search Engine.  Guide: Search tips for Google, Google Scholar, and other search engines. 

There are a few search tips that may make your searches more effective. 
  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

You may wish to use Google when searching for publications by industry associations, websites of groups, etc.

  intitle:(Indigenous OR Aboriginal OR "First Nations") (association OR society)

• Google's special search engines to find reports from government and governmental organizations
  • NGO Search - is a Google Custom Search that searches across hundreds non-governmental organization (NGO) websites. 
    • intitle:(Indigenous OR Aboriginal OR "First Nations") (business OR corporation OR entrepreneur OR startup OR company)
       
  • IGO Search - International governmental organizations (IGOs) are organizations made up of more than one national government—examples include NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) and the WHO (World Heath Organization). The governments are the members. IGO Search is a Google Custom Search that searches across IGO websites. 
    • intitle:(Indigenous OR Aboriginal OR "First Nations") (business OR corporation OR entrepreneur OR startup OR company)

  For more, try our Indigenous Studies databases list.

Find books, journals, and other publications at SFU Library

BLOG: Indigenous business books & e-books

Search the Library Catalogue to search for books, and to search for journal articles by citation, journal title, article title, or topic. For advanced search strategies for finding books and articles in the Library Catalogue, see the guide Power searching and Boolean searching 

For the searches below, you can limit the search results by "Subject" (left-hand side) or "Resource type." 

Sample searches:

• (Aborig* OR Indigen* OR "First Nations") AND (land OR "natural resources" OR minerals) AND rights AND (Canad* OR "British Columbia")
• (Aborig* OR Indigen* OR  "First Nations") AND business AND (Canad* OR "British Columbia")
• (Aborig* OR Indigen* OR "First Nations") AND (fish* OR tourism) AND (Canad* OR British Columbia")
  • Limited by selected "Subjects"
• (Aborig* OR Indigen* OR "First Nations") AND (employ* OR jobs OR labor* OR labour* OR skill*) AND (Canad* OR British Columbia")
  • Limited by selected "Subjects"
• ("settler colonial*" OR decolonial* OR post-colonial* OR imperialism) AND (tour* OR travel* OR ecotour*) AND (aborig* OR "First Nations OR indigen*)
  • Can further limit by "Subjects"
• (Aborig* OR indigen* OR "First Nations") AND elder*
• (Aborig* OR Indigenous) AND knowledge

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: 

• Aboriginal Australians -- Business 
• Aboriginal title -- Canada
• Entrepreneurship
• Indian business enterprises -- Canada
• Indians Of North America -- British Columbia -- Claims
• Indians of North America -- British Columbia -- Industries
• Indians of North America -- Canada -- Economic conditions
• Indians of North America -- Canada -- Government relations
• Indians of North America -- Employment -- Canada
• Indigenous peoples -- Canada -- Claims
• Indigenous peoples -- Canada -- Economic conditions
• Indigenous peoples -- Land tenure -- Canada
• Natural resources -- Law and legislation -- Canada
• Native business enterprises
• Project management
• Small business -- Management
• Small business -- Planning
• Tourism -- Canada

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 information

Government departments

• Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada
• Library and Archives Canada
  • Includes Aboriginal Heritage and Land Records
• Statistics Canada
  • Statistics on Indigenous Peoples: Statistics Canada

Other guides: 

• Business: Government Resources
• Government Resources: Canadian Federal, Provincial, and Local
• Government of Canada Publications

Past MBA projects & theses - SFU First Nations Scholarly Community

• MBA research projects completed by previous SFU graduate business students.
• SFU First Nations Scholarly Community in Summit for theses of interest from other departments

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. 

Google & Google Scholar

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

Search for a topic: Indigenous land claims in British Columbia

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

Search results limited to words in the title of document, using "intitle:".  Use capital "OR" for synonyms. Put braces "()" around words that mean the same thing. 

intitle:wine industry intitle:(BC OR British Columbia OR Okanagan) 
  Results

Search for 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

Learning tutorials 

• LinkedIn Learning (formerly Lynda.com) - Provides thousands of in-depth step-by-step video tutorials, taught by experts, on software development, design practices, business skills, web development, and photography.
  • Tutorials on data visualization, project management, data analysis, software (PowerPoint, Excel, Tableau, Photoshop), computer languages
  • Learn how to do presentations, create flowcharts, tell stories with data, customer service management 

Presentation skills

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

• Resources on developing your participation skills
• Resources to help you improve your presentation skills

Other SFU library guides

• Avoiding plagiarism
• Home: Library Catalogue search guide
  • Finding books: Library Catalogue search guide
  • Finding journal articles: Catalogue search guide
  • Finding books: Library Catalogue search guide
• Power searching and Boolean searching - for advanced search strategies for finding books and articles in the Library Catalogue
• Search tips for Google and Google Scholar
• Library Tutorials

Writing and citing help

For writing support services, check: 

• NEW: Citing Indigenous Elders and Knowledge Keepers
• Writing Services Offered by the Research Commons.
• Upcoming workshops

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