Business and Company Resource
Research allow for the development and enhancement of knowledge. It is given utmost important by both academia and professionals. Research involves exploring an idea by building upon already available information. Since the research is something which extensively relies on available knowledge, universities as well as professional organizations publish and maintain databases of papers, magazine, books and other material which can then be referenced by researchers in order to build on them.
Some of these databases specialized in providing published material on particular topic; some provide specific piece of knowledge about a large number of topics while others contains a mix of information which is accessible through searching. Some of these databases are discussed below. The database of Business and Company Resource Centre is a comprehensive source for gaining information about a particular industry and companies. The database not only provide detailed profile information about the company being searched but also list articles published in newspapers and magazines about the company.
The information returned as a result of the search is categorized into different sections (tabs) which make it easier to locate information. However, the search options as well as search sorting options of this database are quite limited, which makes it difficult for a researcher to narrow down the search quickly. The information available on this database makes a very good resource for business researchers who are either looking for company information or want to locate articles related to a company swiftly.
ProQuest is another well-known research database, which contains significant amount of publications on a large number of topics. A search on ProQuest for a particular company shows that database search uses keyword to find relevant publications in the database. However, ProQuest also suggests various search strings in the result of the search as well, which allows a researcher to quickly narrow down the search to his or her interest. ProQuest also searches a wide range of sources than Business and Company Resource Centre Database and include scholarly journals, dissertations as well as trade publications in its search.
However, the results of ProQuest had a much wider scope then Business and Company Resource Centre making it cumbersome for a researcher to look for the needed piece of information. This database is more suited to a researcher who is searching for a topic or subject in multiple contexts rather than a specific one. LexisNexis Academic is another database used in academic research. On searching the database for a company, the results shown were much more precise then ProQuest while search was done a range of resources much wider than Business and Company Resource Centre Database.
The results were also classified in different categories which were display in separate pane rather than in a different tab, this made the switching between different categories much easier than ProQuest. The option of searching within results and sorting the articles on various criteria is also a very helpful feature in allow a researcher to quickly locate the desired publication. However, LexisNexis did not contain abstract of the publications in the search, as in the case of ProQuest, thus forcing the reader to go through a significant amount of publication in order to determine if it contains the required information or not.
