MBA Country Research Resource Guide: Home

​Welcome! This is a research guide​ to international country and company data. It is divided into two sections. This page is a welcome and an introduction. It also contains a video that Smith Library Media Services recorded of a research instruction session that was given for an MBA class that was doing a project and were using country data. You are welcome to view the video and also use the research guide narrative. There is a short quiz that will test on skills and research methods covered in this class. 

Before we get started it is important to remember that there is some background information that you need. 

• Public companies, domestic or international, issue stock and may be traded on one of the open exchanges. We can also find data on companies which are not American owned but are traded on US exchanges - public international companies. We can also find companies operating in the US which are a publicly traded international company. The auto companies are a good example - Honda and Toyota USA. 
•  Private companies (International or not) have a limited number of shareholders and they do not issue stock and do not have to publicly disclose financial information.
• Industry codes are assigned to companies both large and small. These NAICS, North American Industry Classification System use a numerical code to identify an industry. These codes are used by the US government but also work (harmonize) with international codes and also reflect the North American Market - NAICS were developed after the NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement) agreement was implemented. They are used as a benchmark to record numerical data about an industry and codes are revised every year to reflect changes in the market. NAICS codes replaced the older SIC codes which were developed following the Great Depression. 

In this class session, we will use resources that provide information about countries and country data. As a sidebar we will also touch on looking at information on international companies.