Use this guide as a springboard for doing the research for your Individual Final Project in the BUS 305 course on Management Information Systems.
When choosing a company to research, be sure to verify that it has 10 years of financial data in the Morningstar database below. This ensures that your company has been publicly traded for the past decade, meaning that annual reports and financial data will be available. If you choose a nonprofit organization or private company, make sure that you can find multiple years of financial data about it.
To track the sources you find on your company during the librarian's visit, make a copy of this Paper Trail document and fill it out.
Use these library databases to research Section e of your paper (Current State of the Industry).
Use these reports to research Section f of your paper (Company Introduction).
Visit your company's website and look for the corporate information or investor's webpage, where its Annual Reports are published. These present the company's perspective on the year's activities and performance.
Look through the company's most recent 2-3 reports for information about its technology, systems, or privacy. You can use Ctrl-F to search for words like these in the reports, which are often lengthy.
Also be sure to look for other useful reports on the website, such as their Privacy Policy.
Use these library databases to find articles containing information about your company's technology, systems, and privacy issues, which can be used in section f of your paper.
When searching Business Source Premier for articles, keep these tips in mind:
Use this data to complete the analysis for Section f-iv of your paper (Financial Data Analysis).
To cite articles found in Business Source Premier, use the Cite tool inside the database to generate a citation in your chosen style.
Here are examples of APA-style citations for other resources used in this project. You can use these as models for your own:
IBISWorld Industry Report
Daly, J. (2023, July). Pharmacies and Drug Stores in the US. IBISWorld Industry Reports. https://my-ibisworld-com.proxy108.nclive.org/us/en/industry/44611/about
MarketLine Industry Profile
MarketLine (2023, October). Hotels and Motels in the United States. MarketLine Industry Profiles. Business Source Premier. https://login.proxy108.nclive.org/login?url=https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=buh&AN=153730348&site=bsi-live
Company Annual Report
Pfizer Inc. (2023). Annual Report on Form 10-K. https://investors.pfizer.com/Investors/Financials/Annual-Reports/default.aspx
Morningstar Financial Data
Morningstar. (2023). Ford Motor Co.: Income Statements [Data set]. Morningstar Investment Research Center. https://login.proxy108.nclive.org/login?url=https://www.nclive.org/cgi-bin/nclsm?rsrc=220
Carlyle Campbell Library
Meredith College
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