Tips for Access to Library Resources

  • The simplest way to initiate library research is to open up your favorite browser and go directly to library.villanova.edu.
  • Most library subscription databases are authenticated with a single sign on.  Once you login to a single database with your Villanova email user name and password you will have access to all others. Some databases such as  ESRI Business Analyst online require additional registration credentials.
  • You will not be able to access known library resources by simply Googling them. 
  • Firewalls at workplaces are a common impediment to accessing library databases.  To avoid this problem find an open network connection elsewhere.  Few employers IT departments are willing to adjust firewalls.

  Choosing the Right Database

Knowing which database to use is half the battle.  Asking professors, classmates and librarians for recommendations is often helpful. 

When asking for suggestions about what sources to use, remember to provide a concise description of what information you think you need, describing how you would like to use the information. 

Library database descriptions try to convey database content, but sometimes you will need to log on to the database to get a better idea of what is offered and use database help tools.

The groupings of resources in the side bar of this page aids in finding databases that offer company profiles, industry and market research reports and more. 

We have many scholarly and practice oriented ebooks, search books & more and limit to online collections to find them.

Business researchers often engage in interdiscipinary or multidisciplinary inquiry.  Use our subject guides to learn about our non-business subscriptions.


  Get Full Text Article or Journal

There are multiple paths to getting the full text of an article or access to an electronic journal.  The LEAST favorable avenue is for you to do a web search and pay for the content.  Before you resort to buying articles or subscribing to journals use the tools listed here.  If they fail contact the library for help.
 

  • If you know the name of the journal, magazine or newspaper, use the Journal Finder.
  • If you know the Digital Object Identifier for an scholarly article, try the DOI tool.
  • If the bibliographic information for the article is incomplete, search Articles and more.
  • If  you are in a library database with only an article summary, link to the Findit button to see if we have full text elsewhere.
  • If the library doesn't have electronic full text, use interlibrary loan also called ILLIAD to request a scanned copy of the article.
  • If you don't have precise information about the article try linking to full text in Google Scholar (be sure the settings for  library links to Villanova are checked to get subscribed content).
  • MBA students often ask if they can get Harvard Business cases and Harvard Business Review through the library.  Harvard Business cases are only available from the publications.  Harvard Business Review articles are available from Business Source Premier (not licensed for assigned course reading) or on request from the library's print collection (without licensing restrictions).

  APA Citations

Academic integrity guidelines mandate the attribution of sources used in written work.  Most business courses require the use of American Psychological Association (APA) style for in-text citations and references.  The APA style is well suited to citing scholarly resources but more challenging to apply to practical business materials. Finding model APA citations that closely match typical business sources may take some adjustments.  Remember consistent citation is key.

There are a number of tools (listed here) at your disposal for creating and managing citations.  They save you time and effort but are imperfect.  You will need to get to know the APA style in order to correct mistakes.  The official APA Publication Manual is not available online.
 

  • Zotero A free web based reference manager also suitable for sharing
  • MS Word The reference tab enables you to create citations and works cited lists.
  • Most academic article databases have citations utilities that generate citations for you or export citations to common citations managers such as Zotero or Mendeley. 

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  Finding Scholarly Studies

In business disciplines scholarly studies can take the form of books, journal articles,  working papers or reports.  Types of scholarly studies include theoretical papers, literature reviews or meta-analysis, and empirical research either quantitative, qualitative or mixed method. 

There are several dominant avenues for finding scholarly work.  Many article databases have check offs for scholarly or peer reviewed journals.

  • Search subject specific databases such as EconLit or Business Source Premier
  • Use general purpose and interdisciplinary search engines such as SCOPUS, Web of Science or Google Scholar.
  • Chase citations in articles and books (see section on getting full text or article or journal)

  Evaluating Journals and Articles

Journal metrics & rankings are imperfect but frequently used ways to gage the quality of research studies.  The following tools publish journal level metrics such as impact factor, immediacy index,&  H Index to name a few.  For definitions and keys to understanding these metrics use the help links.

SJR Scimago

JCR Journal Citation Reports

Cabell's Directory of Publishing Opportunities

Peer reviewed research articles need to be evaluated for quality by considering the research methods, data used and analysis provided.  Nonetheless metrics such as citation counts, downloads and altmetrics such as views, uses and mentions reported by services such as PlumX are influence indicators.  The following business databases offer article level metrics.

Scopus

Google Scholar

Web of Science (Clarivate)

Business Source Premier


Gmelich Lab for Financial Markets

Additional business databases are offered by the Gmelich Lab for Financial Markets.  Please note the access instructions and limitations on use.

  • ArcGIS: Onsite in lab or ESRI Business Analyst Online via Falvey Library.
  • Bloombert Terminals: Onsite in lab, one terminal onsite in Falvey Library.
  • Capital IQ Pro soon to include SNL Financial: Register with Villanova email for remote access, Do not use log in through SSO.
  • Eikon: Faculty only.
  • FactSet: Onsite in lab or contact lab to register for remote access.
  • Morningstar Direct: Faculty only, Morningstar Investment Research via Falvey Library.
  • SDC Platinum: Onsite in lab.
  • TraderEx: Login by selecting Villanova.
  • WRDS (Wharton Research Data Services): Registers with Villanova email for remote access.

 Business Databases A-Z

  A to Z International Business
Offers country guides for doing business, reference materials relevant to importing, exporting and global business, and primers for understanding a range of topics related to international business.

  ABI/INFORM Collection (ProQuest)
Provides access to scholarly journals, dissertations, working papers, key business and economics periodicals, and country- and industry-focused reports.

  Access World News (NewsBank)  Tutorial
Provides full text access to national and international newspaper articles and radio and television news transcripts. Many newspapers, including the Philadelphia Inquirer, offer full-image “page view” format. Includes user-friendly subject browse feature, as well as full text searchability. Coverage varies.

  Advertising Age Datacenter (AdAge)  Access Instructions
Features news, reports, and statistics about the advertising industry.

  Advertising Insights (Kantar Media)  Tutorial
Creates custom reports on advertising expenditures across media channels including TV, magazines, newspapers, radio, outdoor and internet displays on the level of industries, categories, brands, products, and advertisers going back to 2017. Formerly known as Ad$pender.

  Audit Analytics  Access Instructions
Provides access to data and information about public company audits, compliance, and governance.

  Bloomberg.com  Access Instructions
Subscription courtesy of Villanova School of Business. Provides access to business news and podcasts well beyond what is available in the print editions of Bloomberg Businessweek.

  BoardEx  Limitations on Use  Access Instructions
Contains biographical information including education, prior employment, connections, age and gender on board members and senior executives around the world. Compensation data provided.

  Books 24x7
Features ebook collections in the fields of information technology and engineering.

  Business Abstracts with Full Text (EBSCO)
Indexes business magazines and scholarly journals. Includes abstracts and selected full text. Coverage goes back to 1995.

  iGLibrary Plus (Business Expert Press)
Features ebooks and insights articles in the field of business. Topics include management, economics, marketing, finance, accounting, and human resources.

  Business Source Premier (EBSCO)
Provides access to a wide range of academic business journals and trade magazines. Topics include management, marketing, finance, economics, and management information systems. Full text access may be embargoed for up to three years. Coverage goes back to 1965.

  Cabells Journalytics Academic
Helps researchers to identify journals for manuscript submission. Provides journal overviews, metrics, and manuscript guidelines. Includes acceptance rates, journal impact factors and altmetrics where available. Also features reports on journals with questionable practices. Villanova researchers have access to journal information in the fields of health, education, business, psychology, and psychiatry. Formerly known as Cabells Scholarly Analytics.

  Calcbench  Access Instructions
Provides access to historical and real time Securities and Exchange filings via XBRL. Facilitates semi-structured searches of financials, footnotes and text disclosures for firm, competitor and industry level financial and risk analysis.

  China Data Online (China Marketing Research Co.)
Provides national, provincial, city, and regional data series including national accounts, prices, employment, income, industry, foreign trade, agriculture, construction, transportation, telecommunication, and education in monthly and annual time series.

  Communication & Mass Media Complete (EBSCO)
Indexes academic journals, magazines, books, and book reviews in the fields of communication, mass media, and other closely-related fields. Includes abstracts and full text for selected journals. Coverage goes back to the early 20th century.

  Conference Board Business & Economics Portfolio
Includes reports, economic indicator data sets, and global macroeconomic time series for economists. Also features interviews and studies on leadership, compensation, organizational development, operations, globalization, diversity, sustainability, innovation and more for management and human resource development professionals. Coverage varies.

  D&B Hoovers
Offers public and private company and industry information including company profiles, market research reports from Marketline, Freedonia, Euromonitor, and RMA updated with recent news, executive profiles, and analyst reports.

  Data Citation Index (Clarivate)  Tutorial
Indexes data sets from a wide range of international data repositories and connects them with the scholarly literature to track data citations. Covers all disciplines from 1900 to the present.

  EMIS Intelligence (Emerging Markets Information Service)
Delivers company and industry information together with relevant news, research, and analytics for developing markets.

  ESRI Business Analyst Online  Tutorial  Access Instructions
Provides geographic analysis tools. Includes demographic, consumer spending, and business data.
Access courtesy of the Department of Geography & the Environment.

  EconBiz  Tutorial
Offers a free search engine for journal articles, working papers, and books in economics and business studies. Most contents are freely available to all. Produced by the German National Library of Economics/Leibniz Information Centre for Economics.

  EconLit with Full Text (EBSCO)
Indexes and abstracts journal articles, books, working papers, and dissertations in the field of economics based on the Journal of Economic Literature's subject classification. Provides access to the full text of selected journals including all American Economic Association journals. Coverage goes back to 1886.

  Economist Intelligence Unit
Features a single unified platform delivering country and regional reports and comparable data for over 200 countries. Politics, economics, the business environment and sector and industries are explained and forecasts presented. The data tab delivers time series on national accounts, monetary, demographic, trade, employment, debt & spending indicators to name a few.

  eMarketer
Offers data and reports related to digital marketing. Topics include advertising spending, digital marketing, social media, media usage, e-commerce, email marketing, and device usage. Coverage is global.

  Factiva (Dow Jones)
Provides access to international, national and local news sources. Many different news media such as newspapers, magazines, wires, blogs and transcripts are aggregated in English and foreign languages. The content is current and archival. Industry, company and market profiles are also provided.

  Financial Times  Limitations on Use  Access Instructions
Provides full access to the web edition which features the same content found in the print edition plus additional multimedia features, company tear sheets, interactive charting, a dictionary of financial terms, and recruitment tools. Digital access to the print edition is available via ABI/Inform and Nexis Uni.
Subscription courtesy of Villanova School of Business.

  First Research Industry Profiles (ABI/INFORM Collection - ProQuest)
Provides industry profiles with critical analysis, statistics, and forecasts. Coverage extends back to 2009.

  Foundation Directory Online Professional (Foundation Center)
Offers information on foundations, corporate giving programs, and grantmaking charities. Grantmaker profiles include private and independent foundations, corporate foundations, U.S. federal funders, public charities, and international foundations.

  Gale Directory Library
Presents a collection of directories including Business Rankings Annual, Market Share Reporter, Encyclopedia of Business Information Sources, Encyclopedia of Associations: National Organizations of the U.S., and Gale Directory of Publications and Broadcast Media.

  Gale eBooks
Offers access to a collection of digital encyclopedias, handbooks, dictionaries, and directories in the arts, social sciences, business, and sciences. Formerly known as Gale Virtual Reference Library.

  Gallup Analytics and Brain  Tutorial
Provides access to nearly a century of U.S. public opinion data in the Gallup Brain along with current recurring questions in U.S. Dailies poll for national, state, select city and individual MSA levels and the Gallup World Poll with global tracking data, social series and key indicators polling data. (World Poll questions may vary by year and country conditions.)

  Gartner  Limitations on Use
Features analyses, forecasts, and market statistics on IT products and services.
Subscription courtesy of Villanova UNIT.

  Global Financial Data  Limitations on Use
Features historical data on worldwide stock exchanges, bond indices, intraday data, futures, interest rates, population, and much more. All data is clearly defined, easy to read, and can be readily exported into Excel.

  GuideStar Pro
Provides detailed information about nonprofit organizations including IRS Form 990 with financial statements. Also offers self-reported information about programs and activities.
Partially funded by Villanova School of Business.

  HSTalks: The Business & Management Collection
Contains multimedia lectures (typically 30-60 minutes), and case studies (usually brief and related to current developments) designed to augment teaching and learning across the business curriculum. Videos are segmentable and embeddable in course management systems. Provides access to peer reviewed, practice oriented journals.

  Harvard Business Publishing Collection (EBSCO)  Limitations on Use
Features books published by Harvard Business Publishing, including the popular HBR Guide series and HBR Must Reads which include the full text reprints of influential Harvard Business Review articles.

  HeinOnline
Provides full text access to legal periodicals, books, government documents, legal texts, and other primary source collections in the legal field.
Subscription courtesy of the Charles Widger School of Law Library.

  IBISWorld
Provides access to U.S. and global industry market research reports.

  ICPSR (Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research, Institute for Social Research, University of Michigan)  Access Instructions
Provides access to archived social science data and data-driven learning guides designed for the classroom. Includes information about data management and curation services available to member institutions. See Qualitative Data Repository for qualitative and multi-method data.

  ISS Board & NEO Diversity Dataset  Access Instructions
Presents data on ethnicity, gender, age, tenure and skills of directors and named executives. Reports on company diversity policies and statistics. See the data dictionary for details.

  Industry Snapshots (ABI/INFORM Collection - ProQuest)
Provides access to global and country level industry profile from Aquisdata.

  International Accounting Bulletin
Furnishes news, feature articles and press releases about developments in the accounting and auditing world. Country surveys report on fee income by firms & networks, by service type.

  JSTOR
Provides a full text archive of academic journals and books in the humanities, social sciences, and mathematics. The most recent three to five years of a journal are usually not included.

  LinkedIn Learning
Courses and videos on range of professional development topics such as leadership, diversity, project management, marketing, finance, and software applications. Activate using Villanova single sign on. Access courtesy Villanova Human Resource & Career Center.

  MarketLine Company Profiles (EBSCO)
Offers detailed reports on U.S. and foreign companies in a wide range of industries. These reports provide a description of the business, company history, key personnel, products, services, and competitors. MarketLine Industry Reports are available from the D&B Global Business Browser database.

  MarketResearch.com Academic  Limitations on Use
Provides marketing reports for many industries and demographic reports on a variety of age groups. Documents are formatted as Adobe Acrobat or PowerPoint files.

  Mergent Archives (Moody's Manuals, Annual Reports, SEC & Commodity Research Bureau)
Offers the full text of all of Mergent/Moody's Corporate Manuals, including Mergent/Moody's Industrial, OTC, Bank & Finance, Public Utilities & Transportation Manuals for some titles going back to 1909. The glossy annual report archive includes U.S. and foreign companies with coverage to the 1800s. The SEC Historical collection covers 1970-1995 and includes 10-Ks, 11-Ks & 20-Fs. The CRB Commodity Yearbook, covers 1939 to present. Searching by company, year and location, but not full text, offered.

  Mergent Online  Limitations on Use
Provides detailed financial statements for U.S. and international public and private companies, including SEC filings and current and historical annual reports for U.S. and international public companies. Data can be downloaded in a variety of formats. Also includes country profiles.

  Mintel Insights & Analytics  Limitations on Use
Offers product and industry market research reports covering U.S. and international marketplaces. Each report combines data and analysis of the competitive landscape, supply chain, market-share size and trends, and consumer profiles. Analytics advance search monitors new product activity in consumer packaged goods markets worldwide.

  Morningstar Investing Center
Contains information on more than 30,000 stocks, mutual funds, and exchange-traded funds. Provides independent analysis, industry information, stock charts, portfolio building tools, and web-based educational tutorials.

  NetAdvantage (Standard & Poor's Capital IQ)
Offers market information, company quotes, equity index information, industry information (including the S&P Industry Surveys), and economic data.

  New York Times (NYTimes.com)  Access Instructions
Offers access to all sections of the NYTimes.com website without monthly limits. Coverage from 1851 to present, with limited availability of articles from 1923-1980. For full text access to all NYT content except the most recent five years, use ProQuest Historical Newspapers.
Subscription courtesy of the Provost's Office and Falvey Library.

  Nexis Uni  Limitations on Use
Formerly known as LexisNexis Academic. Provides full text access to national and international newspaper and magazine articles and news transcripts, business, company, and industry information in the U.S. and abroad, and legal documents, including U.S. Federal and State court cases, and law reviews. Coverage varies.

  O'Reilly for Higher Education  Tutorial  Access Instructions
Provides access to over 35,000 ebooks, 30,000 hours of video, curated learning paths, technology manuals, case studies, audio books, and videos covering fields ranging from software development, business, management, career development, engineering, design and more. Formerly known as Safari Books Online.

  Oxford Bibliographies (Oxford University Press)  Tutorial
Presents peer-reviewed, annotated bibliographies and expert commentary on current scholarship in selected disciplines. Villanova University has access to the following bibliographies: African American Studies, Art History, Atlantic History, Biblical Studies, British and Irish Literature, Buddhism, Cinema and Media Studies, Classics, Communication, Criminology, Environmental Science, Geography, International Relations, Islamic Studies, Latin American Studies, Management, Medieval Studies, Philosophy, Political Science, Psychology, Renaissance and Reformation, and Victorian Literature.

  Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Business and Management
Presents essays of 15-30 pages written by academic subject experts on a range business and management topics such as international business, theory, research methods, organizational behavior, entrepreneurship, marketing, negotiation and strategy.

  PRS International Country Risk Guide (ICRG) Tables  Limitations on Use
Offers political, economic, and financial risk ratings and forecasts for 146 countries. Time series data covers 1985 through 2021. This is a downloadable file in Microsoft Excel format.

  PRWeek (Haymarket)  Access Instructions
Provides access to an overview of the top news stories, campaigns, analyses, techniques, and opinion pieces affecting the marketing communications industry. Covers global relations from 1998 to the present.

  Passport (Euromonitor International)  Limitations on Use
Provides lifestyle statistics and reports, market data and analysis, and market forecasts for selected countries. Includes 6-year historic market size data for selected consumer products plus 5-year forecasts.

  Philadelphia Business Journal (American City Business Journals)  Limitations on Use  Access Instructions
Offers full text access to the Philadelphia Business Journal and their Book of Lists  

  Pitchbook  Limitations on Use  Access Instructions
Provides data on companies, deals and investors in the private equity and venture capital space.

  PolicyMap  Tutorial
Offers a tool for mapping and analyzing U.S. national data on a wide variety of topics including education, income, employment, public health, crime, housing, transit, and more. Researchers can conduct demographic and socioeconomic analyses on a variety of geographic levels, from the national level to the neighborhood census block group as well as custom regions. Time series data covers 2000 to present.

  PsycINFO (ProQuest)  Tutorial
Provides abstracts and indexing to journals, books, book chapters, technical reports and dissertations in all areas of psychology. This database is produced by the American Psychological Association (APA). International in scope; coverage is from 1887 to the present.

  RIA Checkpoint (Thomson Reuters)  Limitations on Use  Access Instructions
Includes federal, state, local, and international tax codes, regulations, cases, and administrative rulings with explanations and commentary. Also offers news alerts and a tax thesaurus.

  Reference USA (Data Axel)
Provides directories for US & Canadian businesses, healthcare professionals, US & Canadian individuals. Supports searching for consumer lifestyle interests and demographic characteristics. Offers a job/internship module.

  Regional Business News (EBSCO)
Provides full text coverage of regional business publications including journals, newspapers, and newswires from all metropolitan and rural areas within the United States.

  Roper Center for Public Opinion Research (iPOLL)  Tutorial  Access Instructions
Offers public opinion poll data from surveys conducted in the U.S. and other countries by many major polling organizations. Includes the full text of questions and responses. Items with a green plus icon have crosstab breakdowns; those with an X have microdata available for download; while those with a green and blue star icon allow you to perform custom crosstab analysis online. Covers 1935 to the present, updated daily.

  SAGE Knowledge
Provides full text access to encyclopedias and handbooks in the social sciences, as well as selected ebooks. All content is published by SAGE Publications.

  SBRnet
Offers statistics, articles, and reports on sporting goods, participation, fans, media, and facilities. Formerly known as Sports Business Research Network.

  Sage Business Cases  Limitations on Use  Access Instructions
Offers scholarly, peer-reviewed business case studies covering a variety of industries and topics.

  Scopus (Elsevier)
Provides citations and abstracts to peer-reviewed journals, books, and conference proceedings in all major disciplines. Provides information on citing and cited references for each article.

  Social Explorer
Provides access to maps and tables of U.S. Census and American Community Survey data from 1790 through most recently released data. Also includes datasets on election, health, crime, religion, and environmental topics, as well as some international data (UK Census 2011; Canadian Census 2011; selected Eurostat data; and World Development Indicators from the World Bank.) Create a free personal account in order to save your work.

  Social Science Research Network (SSRN)  Limitations on Use
Offers abstracting and full text of working papers in a variety of social science fields. Composed of several specialized research networks, SSRN promotes rapid dissemination of early research results.

  Statista
Provides a portal to statistics and studies gathered by market researchers, trade organizations, scientific publications, and government sources. Topics covered include industries, media, companies, product categories, and countries.

  Statistical Insight (ProQuest)  Tutorial
Offers indexing, abstracting, and selected full text of statistical publications from U.S. state and federal governments, business and research institutes, and international material from the UN, OECD, EU, etc. Some tables are available in GIF, XLS, CSV, and other formats.

  The Lens
Free patent and scholarly works search and analysis tool.

  Value Line Investment Survey
Provides information for investors on individual stocks and companies. Offers forecasting and historical information, as well as detailed financials, charts, and reports. Includes sorting, filtering (screening), graphing, and reporting functions.

  Vault
Offers career, school, and industry guides; internship information and reviews; company rankings and profiles; and job search advice. Formerly known as Vault Online Career Library.
Access courtesy of the Villanova Career Center.

  Venture Capital & Private Equity Firms (Grey House Publishing)
Presents an international directory of venture capital and private equity firms. Profiles include information about each firm's mission, industry and geographic preferences, portfolio companies, and more; also includes background information about each firm's executives.

  WARC
Offers information on global advertising and marketing trends including case studies, articles, reports, opinion pieces, and expenditure data. Formerly known as World Advertising Research Center.

  WRDS (Wharton Research Data Services)  Limitations on Use  Access Instructions
Offers a data research platform for business and economics datasets including AuditAnalytics, COMPUSTAT, CRSP, CBOE, Option Metrics, Risk Metrics, TAQ, TRACE, Thomson Reuters 13f, Dealscan and others.

  Web of Science (Clarivate)  Tutorial
Provides access to the Social Sciences Citation Index, Science Citation Index Expanded, Arts and Humanities Citation Index, Conference Proceeding Citation Index, Book Citation Index, Emerging Sources Citation Index, Current Chemical Reactions, and Index Chemicus. Search for scholarly articles in any discipline, or for articles that cite a known author or work. Coverage varies.