According to the Concordia University Library website:

A primary source is any original work that is unmediated by external analysis, evaluation, or interpretation. A secondary source is typically an external study of primary sources, usually written retrospectively. A tertiary source typically amalgamates the content found in primary and secondary sources and is less critical or argumentative than secondary sources.

Source: Concordia University Library, What are primary sources?

With regards to primary or secondary sources, the distinction usually about the identity of the organization issuing the source. In the field of business, primary sources are documents issued by the corporation (press releases, product catalogues, corporate websites, advertisements, financial statements and other filings, etc.) while secondary sources are issued by others, most notably journalists or researchers writing articles about the corporation.

Interviews throw an interesting curve ball into this distinction. I would say that a news or trade journal article featuring an in-depth interview with an executive would probably qualify for a primary source, if the article contains only the interview. If the article only has a few quotes from a company source but contains much more than just the interview (say, commentary or analysis), then the article in question ceases to qualify as a primary source (primary = from the mouth of the corporation or their executives).

It is important to note that certain academic disciplines may have a different definition for primary/secondary sources. Most notably, historians usually consider historical newspaper articles as “primary sources” in their disciplines because of how they conceptualize these sources within the framework of their academic discipline. This is important should you seek out information on the Internet about primary/secondary sources…

Here is a paragraph I sent to a student trying to locate business information:

And please remember my motto about research: Search well and use what you find. Seeking out a little tidbit of information may be (and usually is) a waste of time. Take an hour or two, compile interesting sources from smart searching, and use what you find.

I often get questions about finding very specific (and often unrealistic) bits of information from students. Searching for business information is where students confront theories they learn in classes to the real world, sometimes theories just don’t fit with the data that’s out there!

Here are sources for finding information about Montréal’s economy and industrial make-up. I refer to subscriptions at Concordia University where I work.

– Passport GMID from Euromonitor
This is a system we have under subscription at the Library. It now provides top line reports of major cities around the world, including Montreal. Please access the system via this link:
http://clues.concordia.ca/record=e1001087~S0
(click on the database name and provide your netname if asked)
After accepting the terms of use of the system, just type Montreal in the search box on the top-right corner of the page. You will get many reports, but you are looking for the “Montreal City Review” in particular.
Video on using Passport: http://youtu.be/Wpotf4vcJmE?list=PLaqfn26UOsX-OJGT_W_UTOWzvAA5Kb3tG

– Montréal en statistiques
This city of Montréal website provides various reports about the city:
http://ville.montreal.qc.ca/portal/page?_pageid=6897,67633583&_dad=portal&_schema=PORTAL
In addition to the various reports, themes and other data available therein, I noticed this very recent economic portrait of the city:
Profils économiques : un portrait à jour de la dynamique économique montréalaise
http://ville.montreal.qc.ca/portal/page?_pageid=6897,68131631&_dad=portal&_schema=PORTAL&id=10396&ret=/pls/portal/url/page/mtl_stats_fr/rep_nouvelles/coll_nouvelles
Looks very interesting.

– Montréal International
This is the international development agency for the city. There are a lot of high-level glossy reports and data on this site, but in particular their publications:
http://www.montrealinternational.com/publications/
(This agency is one of the few I recommend you build a long-term, low volume but high impact relationship with)

– MEIE, Québec Government
The Ministère de l’économie has a portal devoted to each administrative region of the province, this is the Montréal page:
http://www.economie.gouv.qc.ca/pages-regionales/montreal/
Make sure you click around in the “Portrait régional” box, which is located on the bottom left-hand section of the page. You get a one or two page report for each theme.
(This agency is one of the few I recommend you build a long-term, low volume but high impact relationship with)

– Conference Board of Canada
I am sorry to report that we do ** not ** have access to the Conference Board of Canada’s e-library, but I did want to mention that they provide detailed forecasting reports at the city level.

Stumbled on this flowchart from Jenny Mueller-Alexander at Arizona State University Libraries about researching a single company or an industry.

I like how the company process splits into private company and public company – which has a huge impact on the amount of information available. Remember that anything a company tells you is either to their benefit, either required my law (like disclosing financial statements when their equity is traded on public markets of capital like stock exchanges).

I’ve been meaning to adapt my similar research protocol for business students to distinguish between researching a business idea (entrepreneurship) that targets consumers versus other companies. This also has great bearing on how one researches the information for a business plan… more on that later…

Pascal Martinolli from Université de Montréal presented a Research Portfolio used to assist students for a research project.

It is used in a one credit optional graduate class (PLU 6058) where students go through various information literacy themes…

The Canadian Marketing Association announced on their website that last summer, the International Journal of Mobile Marketing ran a special issue on mobile marketing in Canada (Summer2012, Vol. 7 Issue 1). Although you can purchase single articles from the publisher, this journal is available from the Library.

Some students and I brainstormed our favorite websites that provide good business information at the international level. Here it is:
– IMF
– OECD
– World Bank
– Doing Business
– CIA World Factbook
– Travel Guides (Lonely Planet)
– UN Data
– WTO Stats

Also a good strategy is to look for free reports from national statistical agencies. Anything missing? Let me know in the comments!

The Canadian Association of Information Science has delivered its latest issue of its Canadian Journal of Information and Library Science (via Project Muse on behalf of UT Press, the publisher), vol. 35 issue 4.

A few articles seem particularly interesting, such as:

Enhancing Skills, Effecting Change: Evaluating an Intervention for Students with Below-Proficient Information Literacy Skills / Renforcer les compétences pour induire des changements : évaluation d’une intervention auprès d’étudiants possédant des compétences informationnelles inférieures à la maîtrise
Don Latham
Melissa Gross
pp. 157-173

and

Subject Guides in Academic Libraries: A User-Centred Study of Uses and Perceptions/Les guides par sujets dans les bibliothèques académiques : une étude des utilisations et des perceptions centrée sur l’utilisateur
Dana Ouellette
pp. 226-241

Of course, all articles seem interesting, but there is so little time to read everything!

Julian Treasure presented 5 ways to listen better at TED – the always entertaining and smart talks about ways to change the world. I thought it added some insight about how to provide for a better reference service :

[ted id=1200]