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Marketing 476: Home

This guide provides resources to help users researching company's and business topics abroad.

Introduction

This guide will aid in helping you locate company research and analysis.  Start your research EARLY.  The side bar tabs will help you locate various content resources.

When researching a company, it is important to know whether it is public, private or a subsidiary of a larger company.

Public companies sell shares of the company (stocks) to the general public, and are required to submit financial information and annual reports to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.  Public companies are therefore easier to research as a general rule of thumb.

Private companies do not sell publicly traded stocks and as a result, are not required to release as much information to the government or the general public  They are therefore more challenging to research.

Subsidiaries of public companies can be difficult to research because the parent company is not required to report on each of them individually.  Therefore, when researching a subsidiary, you often have to read carefully through reports about the parent and look for references to the subsidiary.

 

Search Tips

  • It is often difficult to find detailed information on subsidiaries, or companies owned by another. For example, Old Navy is a subsidiary of The Gap.
  • Beware that the name you know the company by might not be it's official name. For example, Hewlett-Packard is technically HP Inc.
  • Mergers and acquisitions can make it difficult to find historical information on previously existing entities.  
  • An organization preparing the profile has its own unique viewpoint.
  • Using multiple country profiles will give you a more complete picture. 

 

Business & Social Work Librarian