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BUS 420: Business Strategy and Sustainability

This info guide will help you navigate the library resources available to you to help you complete your class assignments.

Library Resources

You will see a list of intended learning outcomes for BUS 420 along with the recommended database and quick tip information on how/where to find your needed research information located on the following tabs in this section.

You can use the supplemental information located in this guide to help you navigate the library databases or reach out to your WWCC librarian. contact information is located on the home tab.

Below are the intended learning outcomes for BUS 420

 

Intended Learning Outcomes Recommended Databases  Helpful Tips
Explore the underlying theory and frameworks that provide the foundations of a successful business strategy.

Start with the EBSCO database to gather articles and other supplemental information. EBSCO is very user-friendly and a very powerful database. If you still need more articles then try searching through ProQuest.

Small Business Reference Center is a great database that yields great information regarding small businesses. You can find information on employee hiring, marketing your business, tax deductions that may stem from green and sustainable practices. Use this database to help build a better understanding of the theory of what it takes to run a successful business. 

Pro Tip: Try using a search strategy in the database search bars such as (Business Strategy AND Theory). You may expand to include other lines with your business topic.
Look at the Boolean Logic tab to learn how to use AND, OR, NOT
Utilize critical thinking skills to analyze the competitive environment.

Conducting an environmental scan to determine the competitive environment will need to be done by looking through a variety of sources and discovering patterns in your research.

EBSCO is a great place to get supplemental information on a competitive landscape.
Pro Tip: Search through EBSCO using (Competitive Environment AND hospitality industry)  Replace "Hospitality Industry with your research topic"

IBIS World is a wonderful database to gather competitive research information at the industry level.
Pro Tip: There is a "Competitive Landscape" tab within IBIS reports.

Mergent Intellect is another great database to find out about the competitive environment for your proposal. 
Pro Tip: Once you have your business topic you can find a publically traded company that is a major player in your industry and look up their direct competitors through Mergent.
Apply understanding of SWOT, Competitor, Environmental, and Capabilities Analyses.

Competitor, Environmental factors, and Capabilities Analysis can all be applied by understanding a Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats (SWOT) analysis for a business plan/proposal. Remember it is important to use multiple sources to find patterns in your research to confirm any hypothesis you may have about your business proposal.

IBIS World will be your best bet for finding SWOT for a particular industry.
Pro Tip: IBIS World already contains a SWOT analysis put together under the "Industry at a Glance" tab. Though it is not comprehensive it is a good starting point to use the other listed databases to create your own SWOT analysis for your business proposal. 
Also, look at the supply chain and related industries located on the "About" tab in any report. Any hyperlink will take you to another IBIS report that has its own SWOT analysis.

NEXISUni is our legal database that can be used to find court cases, briefs pleasings and motions, and legal news. This database will allow its users to search cases at the district court level through circuit courts and all the way up to the Federal level.
Pro Tip: If you discover a headline through a newspaper source about a company that was recently in legal trouble due to negligent behavior that was not considered to be "green practices" you can look up those court documents through NEXISUni. Think a company dumping oil into the ocean or an automaker creating fraudulent claims regarding its diesel engine emissions I.E Volkswagen Diesel Scandal.

EBSCO again will be used to find supplemental research on your business proposal to discover data points that you will need to confirm your business proposal hypothesis.
Pro Tip: Try entering a topic into the EBSCO search bar and adding "SWOT" to see if there are any available SWOT reports on your topic. Example, (Whiskey AND SWOT)
Define and identify the key characteristics of business systems as they pertain to sustainability. 

The EBSCO database will be able to provide you with research information regarding business systems and sustainability. You will use EBSCO to pull articles or any reports that may come up in order to better understand what current practices are in sustainability within the parameters of building a business system.

The Small Business Reference Center database will help you identify recommended systems that will allow your business proposal to fall in line with sustainability. SBRC under the "Business Areas" has information on "Going Green" and "Management & Leadership Topics" as well as "Planning & Starting a Business" that will help you learn about successful business systems.


Pro Tip: Try entering the following search strategy into the EBSCO search bar (Business Systems AND sustainability).
For such a broad topic as the above search strategy, it may be helpful to use the filtration methods on the left-hand side to narrow your results based on whatever variables you feel are more important for your project.
Link competitive strategy and sustainability to assess strategic opportunities and risks.

For this learning outcome, it would be best to review the understanding SWOT learning outcome above. A lot of the same research strategies apply because discovering sustainable opportunities and risks partially falls under the "Opportunities and Threats" that are a part of SWOT.

Pro Tip: When in EBSCO enter keywords such as "sustainability". Combine sustainability with your business topic or enter a company name that is similar to that of your business proposal.
Develop a sustainable business strategy in a field of interest and create a persuasive proposal that advocates this solution.

Finally, the last learning outcome will be a combination of using all of the resources at your disposal through WWCC Library. There will never be just one database that you will use to gather your research data. Instead, you will have to gather multiple data points through a diverse list of databases and find patterns within that data. Being able to have multiple data points from authoritative sources such as those from our library website will enable you as the entrepreneur to use the tools at your disposal to become successful​​​​​​.

Pro Tip: Consider using federal and other government-sponsored databases to conduct your research. These sources are accurate and can be trusted so long as they are government-run.
Use the federal Census database to gather statistics on demographics in certain areas. This will be useful when conducting an environmental scan of an area you wish to set up a business. Knowing the population breakdown by number and demographics will allow you to search through the EBSCO database to learn how to market to a certain population.