Joining me in this Portico Research Instruction series are Jason Hall (Economics Librarian) and Chris Strauber (Philosophy Librarian). We will view this class project from three dimensions: industry, company, and issues. You can come to your research topic from any one of these dimensions and then fill in the other two.
Video length: 1 minute 18 seconds
First, we will look at Industry. An industry is a group of companies that are related based on their primary business activities. The example we will use for this Research Instruction is the Automobile Industry and the sector of electric vehicles and self driving cars. Jason Hall will show you great industry sources like IBIS World and Statista.
Next, look at the Company dimension. These are individual players - publicly-held via stock ownership and traded on an exchange, such as the New York Stock Exchange or the NASDAQ. Companies can also be private, with tight individual or family ownership and control, such as Fidelity Investments. They can also be international in scope, or subsidiaries (or smaller units) as part of larger organization. Think General Motors with its Buick, Cadillac, Chevrolet and GMC divisions.
We highly recommend you pick a public company to study as they are required to provide more information about their financial performance, key personnel, and products and services. Public companies are easily identified by their ticker symbol. For this instruction, we will use Tesla and its ticker symbol TSLA. Doug Olsen will explain company information like Investext.
By Issues here, we mean the ethical issues and philosophical underpinnings on how to understand our choices and decisions. For the Automobile Industry, issues such as operator safety, consumer protection, and insurance risk all come to the fore, especially with the topic of autonomous vehicles or driverless cars. Chris Strauber will highlight Philosopher's Index as a key source for ethical problems and schools of thought.
Hi, I'm Doug Olsen, the librarian dedicated to the Carroll School of Management here at Boston College. Please contact me with questions or to schedule a research consultation in which you will receive:
Please use the "Book an Appointment" option if you would like to set up a group meeting with me.
