ADMS4553 -- Auditing: Advanced Topics
ADMS 4553 - Auditing: Advanced Topics
This guide is designed to highlight information resources for Canadian company and industry research for students in ADMS 4553. Special emphasis is given to company, industry, and article sources of relevance for the Group Research Paper.
The guide is divided into the following main sections:
Library Resources
Company Information
Annual Reports/Public Filings - CanadaPublic companies are traded on stock exchanges or over-the-counter and are subject to regulation by Securities Exchanges. They are required by law to file reports publicly. This makes it relatively easy to find information about public companies as their more recent filings are available in the public domain via services like SEDAR.
These filings can be very useful in obtaining information about a company's executives and directors, business description, financial statements, recent developments, management discussions, and more.
SEDAR : This website provides access to documents, including annual reports and proxy statements, filed by public companies and mutual fund groups with Canadian securities regulatory authorities. Filings are available from 1997 to present.
You can also find information on the publicly traded companies via their website, including some financial documents, information about company executives and corporate social responsibility, and media releases. See the investors section of the Research in Motion website for an example of the documents that may be available for your company.
Key Databases: Canadian Publicly-Traded Companies
The databases listed below can be used to find a wide range of information on Canadian publicly-traded companies:
- company profiles
- history
- product information
- key competitors
- analysis, including SWOT
- principal officers and directors
- financial statements and ratios (current and historical)
- stock price information
Bloomberg: Bloomberg is a real-time financial service that provides current and historical data, news and financial analysis of companies, stocks, bonds, and indices. Availabe in the Bronfman Business Library only.
Financial Post Advisor: Includes information on Canadian publicly traded companies including Company Snapshots; Companies by Industry; Corporate Surveys; Predecessor & Defunct; Analyzer Search; Investor Reports; Historical Reports; Dividends; New Issues; and Additional Databases (e.g. Directory of Directors). Financial Post Advisor can also be used to find information about mergers and acquisitions of publicly traded companies in Canada by selecting the Mergers & Aquisitions option in the left hand menu bar.
Factiva: Includes both company information, and news coverage. Click on Companies/Markets on the menu at the top of the screen, and then click on the company option to search for your company. Here you will find company profiles, stock price activity charts, key executives, latest news, peer group listings, financial statements and key ratios, and various reports including a ratio comparison report. It also supports a "build a report" feature which enables users to generate reports containing information selections of specific interest. In the Search menu, you can search Factiva's large collection of news resources. See below for more information on Factiva's news coverage.
MarketLine: The Datamonitor Business Information Center Database (DBIC) provides considerable coverage of publicly-traded Canadian companies . Database coverage includes 10,000 company profiles, 1000 company SWOT analyses, more than 50 country profiles, over 150 industry rankings, and news, comments and analysis.
Mergent Online: Provides information on 2,500 publicly-traded Canadian companies. Company records include detailed business descriptions, key executives, histories, competitor information etc. This product is especially strong in terms of providing company financial information including 15 years of financial statements and three years of company ratios.
Broker/Analyst Reports for Canadian Companies
Investext Plus : Contains full-text financial reports, analysis, and forecasts prepared by the world's leading investment banks, financial analysts and brokerage firms. Provides access to financial analysis for over 11,000 companies. American, Canadian and international in scope.
Using Articles to Find Company and Industry Information
ABI/Inform Global (Proquest) : ABI/Inform contains more than 700 full-text journals and magazines, many dating back to 1986. This resource incorporates management, industry and company-specific information of both a practical and theoretical nature. Subjects covered include: finance, public administration, marketing, management, economics, taxation, telecommunications, corporate strategies, competitive and product information.
ABI/Inform Trade and Industry (Proquest) : This related database covers more than 700 publications. It's designed to help researchers study and compare specific trades and industries.
Business Source Premier : This databases contains 7,792 full-text periodicals and other sources, including scholarly journals, trade and general business magazines, country economic and industry reports, industry yearbooks, and market research reports.
CBCA (Canadian Business & Current Affairs) Complete (Proquest) : Provides interdisciplinary coverage of Canadian topics including the areas of business and current affairs. Offers references, and many full text articles, from Canadian journals, magazines, newspapers, and newswires. Dates of coverage vary by title but many full-text titles available from early or mid-1990s, while citations for many publications available from early 1980s onward. Consult CBCA Business , a subcomponent of the CBCA Complete database, in order to limit search specifically to Canadian business journals and magazines, but note that newspaper and newswire coverage are not offered by this product, and coverage of business topics in non-business publications is also not available.
Canadian Newsstand - Major Dailies (Proquest): A searchable full-text database of major Canadian daily newspapers. Major titles include the Calgary Herald (1988-), the Edmonton Journal (1989-), the Globe & Mail (1977-), the Halifax Daily News (1990-), the Montreal Gazette (1985-), the National Post (1998-), the Ottawa Citizen (1985-), the Toronto Star (1985-), and the Vancouver Sun (1987-). Select the Publications tab for a full listing. There may be a 2 - 7 day delay for the most recent issues.
Factiva: Includes nearly 9,000 sources from 118 countries in 22 languages, including full-text articles from international newspapers including The Globe and Mail, The National Post, and The Toronto Star, and continuously updated newswires and general business news publications like The Economist, Forbes, Fortune, Time, Newsweek, Finanz & Wirtschaft, Satellite News, BusinessWeek.Industry Information
Business Monitor Online : Contains quarterly surveys and forecasts on Canadian and U.S. industries.
Gartner Intraweb : Focused on information technology industries; includes reports and news that provide a valuable source of global market knowledge for IT and telecom industries.
MarketLine: The Datamonitor Business Information Center Database (DBIC) database is divided into Industry, Company, and Country sections and provides considerable coverage of Canadian companies and industries. Database coverage includes 2500 market profiles, 10,000 company profiles, 1000 company SWOT analyses, more than 50 country profiles, over 150 industry rankings, and news, comments and analysis.
Mergent Online: Provides analysis of over twenty key industries in North America including coverage for Canada and the United States. Main areas contained in each report include: the industry landscape, market trends and market outlook. To access the Industry Reports click on the Industry Reports tab within Mergent Online.
Industry Canada: Industry Canada's website for business and industry includes industry surveys, company directories, and patent and trademark databases. Much of the information on individual industries is found under Business Information by Sector and also via Economic Analysis, Statistics, which are links from the Strategis home page.These are good sources for information on manufacturing industries and the high technology sector. This site is beginning to include information on service industries and e-Commerce.
Statistics Canada Publications : This is an index of all Statistics Canada publications available on the Internet as part of the York University Libraries depository library status. Divided into key subject categories including Primary Industries, Commerce and Manufacturing which all include publications of relevance to different industry sectors in Canada.
Sources for Industry Benchmarks & Ratios
Financial Performance Indicators: A Statistics Canada datafile containing key financial ratios by industry including the net profit margin, pretax profit margin, return on equity and liabilities to assets. Available on a stand-alone workstation in the Bronfman Business Library.
Financial Post Advisor : Provides information and data on the key Canadian public companies. Select Industry Reports for general industry statistics and financial ratios.
Key industry ratios for Canada are also available to members of the York University community from the following Statistics Canada publications :
Quarterly Financial Statistics for Enterprises (4th Q, 2000 - present)
Older issues (1996-2000) available in print at the Scott Library (CAN1 CS8.5 61-008)Financial and Taxation Statistics for Enterprises (1999-present)
Older issues (1995-1998) available in print at the Scott Library (CAN1 CS8.5 61-219)
Citing Sources: Footnotes & Bibliographies
Once you have selected relevant business books, articles, company and industry reports, or other items for your research, you will need to compile an accurate list of references or citations to incorporate within your essay or project.
You will need to identify an appropriate citation style or writer's manual. Consult York University Libraries' Style guides for footnotes and bibliographies to get access to style guides for various citation styles. Also see the Bronfman Business Library's Guides to citing print and electronic materials for information specific to business research.
Note that RefWorks, a web-based citation management software, supported by York University Libraries, may also be used free of charge by registered students and faculty to build a personal database of references and to create in-text citations and bibliographies in a style of choice. More information about RefWorks is available on the York University Libraries' web site.
Compiled by Sophie Bury, Business Librarian, Peter F. Bronfman Business Library. Jan. 2008
Updated by Meghan Ecclestone, Business Librarian, Peter F. Bronfman Business Library. Jan. 2009
Last modified by: Meghan Ecclestone on Fri Jan 29 15:44:12 EST 2010
