Tuesday, March 25, 2008

Notable E-Book: Encyclopedia of Business Ethics and Society

Sawyer Library added the Sage eReference Collection about a year ago, and we have found it to be a good way to search across many useful encyclopedias and reference handbooks from Sage, a major publisher with great strengths in the social sciences.

Within the constraints of budget, we hope to add a new updating collection of reference works each year. One such update was rolled into the collection recently. This 2007 and 2008 set includes new Sage encyclopedias on everything from Political Communication to Cancer and Society to 21st Century Psychology to Organization Studies.

One of the new encyclopedias is the Encyclopedia of Business Ethics and Society. Covering many topics related to corporate responsibility and governance, as well as the deeper philosophical issues related to how business operations impact humanity, this resource is a good starting place for either a quick overview of a known topic, or a means of browsing for topics related to a general concept.

For example, if I search the word sweatshops in the opening page search box

I get three pages of (ranked by relevance) entry hits that include that term. These range from an entry specifically on sweatshops to other related topics like Nike, Business Ethics in Developing Countries, the Worker Rights Consortium (WRC), and Moral Relativism. We even pull up a historical entry on the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire.

Obviously, an academic term paper should not be written completely from encyclopedia entries--found in either online or paper format. But for those interested in getting a basic introduction to a variety of subjects related to business ethics, doing some browsing or searching in this new encyclopedia can be a useful step in the research process.

[FIND the
Encyclopedia of Business Ethics and Society by searching the title in our Online Catalog, or through the Sage eReference link in Databases by Subject, E-Books category.]

Monday, March 10, 2008

New Database: Global Market Information Database (GMID)

With the B School's increasing focus on global industry, Sawyer Library recently made a major investment in Euromonitor International’s Global Market Information Database (GMID), a very extensive online information resource providing business intelligence worldwide.


According to the publisher, the database "offers integrated access to internationally comparable statistics, full-text market reports, insightful comment from expert industry and country analysts as well as thousands of sources of further information.

205 countries are researched, with extended coverage of 52.
GMID offers a unique range of international market research

* 4 million+ statistics on industries, countries and consumers
* 15,000 industry, company, country and consumer reports
* Daily articles offering topical reaction to news events
* 25,000 sources of further research information
* Market share and brand share rankings"

Euromonitor has a more-elaborate-than-average authentication process. When you first click on the shortcut, you will need to accept a usage agreement, then, after another relay, you will be transferred into the database. There, you can either do a quick search jump from the green bar in the top border, or explore search options in the left frame.

You may build a search by industries, by country, or by consumer. Below these sorts, there is even a search box that allows you to Search Companies (where you can search by global brand owner [the default] or by national brand owner). And, finally, there are searches of Analysis, which include Company and Country Profiles. To the lower right, there is a list of some of the latest reports. This gives you a sense of how much material is here. Do you want a report on the Supermarkets of Finland? Well, you can find that in GMID.

Often, you will want to step through a "Menu Search" selecting the data you wish to put together. At a certain point, GMID will offer you options in viewing prepared country reports and the like. Explore these.


(Different icons will let you know whether something is Statistics, a Report, or a Source.) Select, filter, and sort your results, and then click Go to move to the next step. When you build your own data set, you can even capture that as an Excel (look for the icons to the upper right of your data chart) to more readily manipulate the data later.


Frankly, GMID is not the most user-friendly database in the world. It is also way too complex to allow for a detailed discussion in a blog entry. I would advise that anyone interested in GMID click on the opening link on the front page that reads "Getting Started: Click Here for a Quick Tour of the Site." You will need a recent version of Adobe Flash Player to take this animated tour, but it is a worthwhile orientation to this resource.

Although most useful for international market research, GMID is certainly useful in putting any brand, company or industry you may be researching into a global perspective. And because general economic and demographic data (often more up-to-date than other web sources) is also available, this resource can even be useful to students and faculty in the social sciences.

[FIND Global Market Information Database (GMID) on our "Databases by Subject" List in the "Business and Management" category.]