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MGT-350: Business Research Methods (Dr. Wang): Home

Business Research Methods Research Guide

Guide Purpose

This guide is meant to help you do research for your SWOT analysis, including finding information about the greater Newport area and US economy. 

If you need to access the library homepage, please visit https://library.salve.edu/

Government Data Sources

Local, state, and Federal government data will be particularly useful for this project.

The Rhode Island Department of Revenue releases data on tax receipts, including monthly hotel tax receipts at the town level and annual reports that include other data on tax receipts related to hospitality data. 

The US Census Bureau's County Business Patterns includes an option to get data based on congressional district. Data groupings include, housing, business, and socioeconomic data. 

The US Census Bureau's American Community Survey Data Profiles allow the user to see data by state, metropolitan area, zip code and other geographic groupings. 

The United States Bureau of Labor Statistics offers data broken out by state and region, and collects certain data points on employment and other data for Rhode Island, including the Rhode Island Economy at a Glance.

The United States Small Business Administration offers small business data for each of the states. There may be other data sets of interest through the SBA. Data.gov shows other available sets

Library Research Databases

Statista includes government statistics, industry forecasts, statistics on consumer activity, and industry profiles. For this project, note that a search for Rhode Island in Statista returns demographic and economic data which Statista has interpreted from US Government sources. 

Sections to look out for in Statista:

Statistics: data clearly presented in charts 

Forecasts and Surveys: projections for sales, revenue, prices, and other information, survey results conducted by Statista and partners

Topics: collected information on specific demographic groups, industries, or other collected data

Dossiers: quick quantitative overview of a topic

Additional Studies: can give you an idea of other questions being asked about your topic

Expert tools - markets: provide more granular forecasts for different market segments

 

If you're looking for information and forecasts for specific industries, First Research provides growth forecasts, critical issues, challenges, trends, and other information and analysis. Business Source Complete offers Industry Reports by business analysts as well.