On this page
- Introduction
- Research help
- Resources for business information
- Video tutorials for finding business information
- Business databases
- Find books
- Past SFU MBA projects
- Google Scholar & Google
- Google Scholar
- Google & its special search engines for government info
- Learning tutorials
- Library guides
- Writing and citing help
Library service updates during COVID-19
Introduction
This guide is designed for students in Graduate Business Programs such as MBA, EMBA, MOT, GDBA and MSc. Finance. 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.
Other starting points:
- SFU Library's main Business guide includes the "Additional information" tab which has many specialized guides (Company information, Industry surveys, and Market research, Business presentations, Business writing, etc.) to assist you with searching for a variety of information
- Library guide for Executive MBA Americas - also provides links to resources from partner institutions
- Executive MBA in Indigenous Business and Leadership guide and Indigenous business resources
- Belzberg Library Information for Graduate Business Programs - Belzberg Library is located in downtown Vancouver at Harbour Centre
- After you graduate and for students of the GDBA or the Radius Programs, try the UBC's Small Business Accelerator guides
- Welcome video -- for a quick introduction to using the Library website for research and to get help.
Research help
You can contact Moninder Lalli, Librarian for Graduate Business Programs ( ) for assistance via email or to make an appointment. Or Ask a librarian.
Resources for business information
Business information resources to find recommended sources, and for search tips that will save you time. This guide includes the side tabs, Facts & data sources, Citing help, etc. For resources on specialized topics like Company information, Industry surveys, and Market research, see the Additional resources: Business information sources.
Start withNews from our BUEC Buzz blog
Follow the BUEC Buzz to keep on top of new resources available for business & economics research at SFU: RSS
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.
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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.
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 mins. video tutorial), to learn how to break down your topic and do a literature search.
Try combining keywords for your research topic:
("small business OR entrepreneur*) AND (manag* OR personnel OR employee*)
- 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.
- PsycINFO - use for consumer psychology, employees, etc. Contains Articles, books, book chapters, technical reports, and theses and dissertations in the field of psychology
For more, see below.
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
Find books
Advanced search tips and strategies
Library Catalogue Search Guide provides search tips for effective searching, including power searching, and strategies for finding books and journal articles.
TheSearch the Library Catalogue to search for books, journal articles, government reports, films, and more.
For any of the sample searches below, try limiting the search results by "Subject" (left-hand side) or "Resource type"
Sample searches:
- ("small business" OR entrepreur*) AND (manag* OR personnel OR employee*)
- (wine* OR alcohol OR beer) AND (industr* OR compan*) AND (Canad* OR BC OR British Columbia)
- (mobile* OR "cell phone*") AND (market* OR advertis* OR consumer* OR customer*)
- derivative* AND (speculat* OR hedging OR risk)
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")
Selected subject headings:
In the SFU Library Catalogue, use the Browse search option and then change "title" (default) to "subject"
- Business presentations
- Consumers
- Entrepreneurship
- Hedging (Finance)
- Indian business enterprises -- Canada
- Marketing
- Personnel management
- Portfolio management
- Project management
- Small Business -- Canada
- Small business -- Management
- Small business -- Planning
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 Library books
Past SFU MBA projects
You can also see examples of MBA research projects completed by previous SFU graduate business students.
Google Scholar & Google
Search tips for Google Scholar & Google
- Search results limited to words in the title of document, using "intitle:"
- Use capital "OR" for synonyms.
- Put parentheses "( __ OR __ )" around words that mean the same thing
- Do NOT use "AND" to join different concepts, "AND" is assumed when two words are next to each other.
For more, try Search tips for Google, Google Scholar, DuckDuckGo, and other search engines
Google Scholar
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."
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 & its special search engines for government info
Use Google when searching for information from companies, industry associations, government, etc.
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 parentheses "( __ OR __ )" 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. The example below is for India, with country code of ".in".
Other country codes: Web country codes
Search for documents from websites in India about elders and families
site:.in (elderly OR seniors OR aged) intitle:families
Results
Google's search engines for government information
- NGO Search - is a Google Custom Search that searches across hundreds non-governmental organization (NGO) websites.
- 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.
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
Library guides
- Avoiding plagiarism
- Finding and evaluating resources on the web
- Evaluating sources [video from Western University 2:16 mins]
- How to write an annotated bibliography
- How to place an Inter-Library Loan request
- Presenting: Business presentations
- Search tips for Google and Google Scholar
- What is a scholarly, peer-reviewed journal?
- Library Tutorials
Writing and citing help
For writing support services, see:
- Writing Services Offered by the Research Commons.
- Writing: Business writing and Academic writing resources
- Upcoming workshops
For citing help, see the SFU Library guide: Citation Guide for Business Sources.