HOD Resources on Companies, Industries, and Organizations

Public or Private Company?

Public companies are required to disclose certain information in order to issue stock and be traded on a stock exchange.  Also investment analysts write reports about companies, their operations, products & services.  Information on public companies is generally easy to find and widely available.  A company's website and its annual report give information from the company's perspective whereas analysts are external to the company and generally more critically objective.

Private companies can be large like Dell which makes it easy to find information about them.  They are a major competitor in their product lines with other large players.  If a private company is small, newly founded or closely held, finding public information may be difficult.  You should begin with the company databases, then take second steps to look at news articles about the company.  If more information is needed, sometimes learning about the background of the principals in the business is the most productive path to information.

Company Reports

Locating Company Articles & News

News and articles give business news and background information about a company. The Business Journals (website) has weekly business newspapers from major cities and covers local/small companies as well as large ones.  No need to login; simply search in the upper right-hand corner for the company name.

The following are library databases:

If it is a small company, just search like this: in this case, it is a startup company with an unusual name, and the Right Side is changed to All Text to get EVERY mention of this company name.

For a large company, do this: changing the Right Side to Company Entity yields ONLY articles that are primarily about Coca-Cola.

Business Plans & How-To Guides

Librarian for Human and Organizational Development

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Jennifer Castle
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Contact:
Peabody Library
Office 305B
615.343.0412
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