Guides: MSOD Master of Science in Organization Development: Company and Industry Research

Locating Company Profiles

Several library databases contain company profiles on many major companies. Tips for searching are provided below.

LexisNexis Uni (formerly LexisNexis Academic) This link opens in a new window
Provides full-text coverage of approximately 15,000 national and regional newspapers, broadcast transcripts, magazines, wire services, federal and state court opinions, federal and state statutes, federal regulations and SEC filings. Access to company profiles, market research and trade journals plus Shepard's Citations® service for all federal and states court cases back to 1789. This database is only available to current Pepperdine students, faculty, and staff. For an overview of how to use Nexis Uni, visit this page.

Example: I need a Hoovers Company Report for Tesla

    Under the heading "What are you interested in?" click the box for "A Publication"
    Type "Tesla" into the box "Search Something Specific
    In Find publication, type "Hoovers Company Records - In-depth Records"
    Click Search
    Locate the Hoovers Company Report for "Tesla, Inc." Hoover's Company Records - In-depth Records

Business Source Complete This link opens in a new window
Access to the industry’s most used business research database, providing full text for more than 2,200 journals, including more than 1,100 peer-reviewed titles in all disciplines of business, including marketing, management, MIS, POM, accounting, finance and economics. Updated daily.

ThomsonOne Research This link opens in a new window
ThomsonOne will be replaced with Refinitiv Workspace in 2021. For more details and registration instructions, please visit this guide.

ThomsonOne Research provides investment reports from prominent banks such as Credit Suisse and Morgan Stanley. These reports provide in-depth analysis and forecasts for publicly-traded companies. **This database requires Internet Explorer 11 or Microsoft Edge running compatibility mode. Go to the Tools menu (the gear icon), select “Compatibility View settings”, and then add thomsonone.com** This database is only available to current Pepperdine students, faculty, and staff.

Example: I need investment reports on Home Depot.

Click the link for Research on the top of the screen
Click the link for Advanced Research
Type home depot into the search box
Type 10 in the Show Page(s) box
Click Search
Click the link for a report that interests you
In the new window that displays, click the box for Select All Reports and click View

Refinitiv Workspace This link opens in a new window
Refinitiv Workspace is a library database that provides financial news, financials, global pricing data and analytics, analyst research reports, and more, including investment reports from prominent banks. These reports provide in-depth analysis and forecasts for publicly-traded companies.

This database is available to Pepperdine students, faculty, and staff only for non-commercial, academic research, and access requires prior registration. For registration instructions, please visit this guide.

Using Online Company Directories

While the library does not subscribe to Dun & Bradstreet's Million $ Directory, you can use Reference USA for company directory searching. This can be helpful to understand higher level information about a company or to locate a list of companies in the same line of business or by geography or some other variable.

Reference USA (now: Data Axle reference solutions) This link opens in a new window
An online directory of 24 million+ businesses in the United States and Canada. Users can search by company name, ticker symbol, executive name, geographic location, sales range, type of business and number of employees.

Locating Financial Data for a Company

Company financial information is readily available when companies are publicly traded. Regulations from the Securities and Exchange Commission SEC ensure that public companies disclose their financial data. Because privately held companies are not subject to the same rules as publicly traded companies, there is usually far less financial information available.

The Pepperdine Libraries InfoGuide for Accounting and Finance provides helpful guidance on using the library databases for publicly traded and privately held companies. Go to the Publicly Traded for search tips on which library resources are best for publicly traded companies and use Privately Held for available data on privately held companies.

Industry Profiles

IBIS World This link opens in a new window
Access to research reports containing key statistics, industry conditions, market characteristics, industry performance, external market drivers, key success factors, and 5-year revenue forecasts for each US industry. Charts and graphs download into Excel, and detailed written analysis provides explanations and insights. This database is only available to current Pepperdine students, faculty, and staff.
Statista This link opens in a new window
Statista.com consolidates statistical data on over 80,000 topics from more than 22,500 sources and provides hundreds of industry reports and dossiers, market forecasts and infographics. Pepperdine's subscription includes access to the expert tools and the Global Consumer Survey for 28 countries.
Business Source Complete This link opens in a new window
Access to the industry’s most used business research database, providing full text for more than 2,200 journals, including more than 1,100 peer-reviewed titles in all disciplines of business, including marketing, management, MIS, POM, accounting, finance and economics. Updated daily.

S and P Net Advantage (Standard & Poor's NetAdvantage) This link opens in a new window
Provides access to research products including Industry Surveys, Stock Reports, Mutual Fund Reports, Bond Reports, Corporation Records, The Register of Corporations, Directors and Executives, and The Outlook, among others. Includes financials as Excel Analytics for both U.S. and global companies.

Passport (formerly Global Market Information Database) This link opens in a new window
From Euromonitor International, Passport GMID provides business intelligence on countries, consumers and industries and offers detailed analysis of consumer and industrial markets around the world across 781 cities, 210 countries, and 27 industries with historic data from 1997 and forecasts through 2020. This database is only available to current Pepperdine students, faculty, and staff.

Mergent Online This link opens in a new window
Mergent Online provides business and financial information for over 23,000 U.S. and international companies. 30 years of historical stock prices are available. SEC filings (real-time and archived to 1993) are included for the 10,000+ NYSE, AMEX and NASDAQ exchange companies. Financials for 15 years are "as reported" and can be downloaded to spreadsheet software such as Microsoft Excel. Select private company reports are available.

Mintel Reports This link opens in a new window
Provides market research reports focusing on consumer products This database is only available to current Pepperdine students, faculty, and staff.
eMarketer (now Insider Intelligence) This link opens in a new window
Includes daily research articles, analyst reports, and a database of e-business and online marketing statistics, aggregated and analyzed from over 4,000 sources. Topics include market research and trend analysis on Internet, e-business, online marketing, media and emerging technologies.
ThomsonOne Research This link opens in a new window
ThomsonOne will be replaced with Refinitiv Workspace in 2021. For more details and registration instructions, please visit this guide.

ThomsonOne Research provides investment reports from prominent banks such as Credit Suisse and Morgan Stanley. These reports provide in-depth analysis and forecasts for publicly-traded companies. **This database requires Internet Explorer 11 or Microsoft Edge running compatibility mode. Go to the Tools menu (the gear icon), select “Compatibility View settings”, and then add thomsonone.com** This database is only available to current Pepperdine students, faculty, and staff.

Refinitiv Workspace This link opens in a new window
Refinitiv Workspace is a library database that provides financial news, financials, global pricing data and analytics, analyst research reports, and more, including investment reports from prominent banks. These reports provide in-depth analysis and forecasts for publicly-traded companies.

This database is available to Pepperdine students, faculty, and staff only for non-commercial, academic research, and access requires prior registration. For registration instructions, please visit this guide.