Company Research

The purpose of citing is (1) to give credit to the original author, and (2) enable the reader to find the source. The American Psychological Association (APA) citation style is widely used in business school courses. You may find general guidelines in:

The APA Style Manual doesn't address directly how to cite business-type sources from library databases, such as analyst reports, market research reports, industry profiles, etc. These sources may not have the same citation elements as books, journal articles, or open access websites:

• Reports often don't list a named individual author. In this case, the name of the publisher or organization that produced information will serve as a corporate author.
• URLs from the address bar for the content in library databases may be too long, inaccessible to readers because of a firewall, or expire after a session. If the URL is not accessible, use the name of a database.
• The APA Style Manual no longer requires the date the information is retrieved.

Suggested Format for Citing Reports in APA style:

Author, A. A., & Author, B. B. (Date of publication). Title of document. Publisher [optional]. Retrieved from [database name].

NOTE:   Use Publisher / Contributor / Organization Name:

• Only if this name is different from the database name and there is a named personal author
• As a corporate author at the beginning of the citation, if no personal author is listed

How to Build an APA Citation for a Report

You may easily create your own APA citation once you identify appropriate elements of a document for citing.

EXAMPLE 1: A report with a named author, produced by S&P Capital IQ McGraw Hill Financial and retrieved from the S&P Capital IQ NetAdvantage database

CITATION: Holt, D. (2016, March). Industry surveys: Electronic equipment & instruments. Retrieved from S&P Capital IQ NetAdvantage.

EXAMPLE 2: A report without a named author, produced by Euromonitor International, and retrieved from the Passport database.  The name of the publisher is used as a corporate author.

CITATION: Euromonitor International. (2016, September). Wearable electronics in the US. Retrieved from Passport database.

NOTE: Always check with your professor for specific citation guidelines.

Several libraries created examples for citing business sources in APA style: