MORS 302: Responsible Management: Governance

Industry Reports

While these reports have a much broader scope than your company and its local or B-Corp competitors, industry reports can give you helpful insight into the industry, regulatory issues, and challenges and opportunities. Reports also provide information about regulatory bodies, journals of relevance, and lists of questions about the industry that may be thought-provoking for your research.

Searching for industry reports in ABI/Inform

1. Use the Advanced Search feature (this is the default search in ABI/Inform)
2. Enter a keyword (e.g., "credit union" or "memory care" or "nonprofit organization" or "electric utilities" in the search bar
3. Limit publication date (in most cases, you should be OK entering selecting the "Last 3 months" option...if no results, expand to "Last 12 months")
4. Select Industry Report in the Document Type box
5. Click Search button

Searching for industry reports in Statista

1. Point to "Reports" at top of page
2. Click Industry & Market Reports
3. Choose United States from region/country drop down
4. Type keyword(s) in search box

As you examine information that is specific to your company (mission, vision, codes of ethics, reporting/no-retaliation policies, and so on), think about how you might do a deeper analysis of your findings.

For example, if your company has a policy that encourages reporting of ethics violations in the workplace, what can you find out in the literature about corporate whistleblower policies, their effectiveness, and whether or not they truly protect those who reveal ethical violations? How might your findings influence your recommendations to the company for improving governance and stakeholder engagement?

Find an industry report that is relevant to one of the four companies

• Make note of 2 or 3 pieces of information that may be helpful for working with a company in that industry
• Report out on what you find and why it might be useful

AND

Clear the ABI/Inform search form (if you searched for an industry report there). Search ABI/Inform using keywords related to one of the companies AND related to governance (corporate culture, organizational culture, company values, leadership, ethics, transparency, etc.). 

• Make note of keywords you tried and whether they yielded any helpful results
• Make note of any keywords/subject terms you saw in the results that caused you to change your search strategy
• Make note of any limiters you used (date range, location, etc.)
• Report out on how your search went and on anything of interest you found