Accountancy, Finance and Economics

For some assessments you may be required to locate company information, including annual or financial reports. 

You can use our eResources to find lots of useful background information on companies, as well as 10 years of figures for larger publicly listed companies.

Before you choose your company or industry, you may wish to check what information is available. 

Facts and figures for smaller companies can be hard to locate: 

• Limited (Ltd) companies, unlike PLCs, are not required to make their annual reports publicly available. 
• The company may be a subsidiary, in which case any information is likely to be subsumed within the report of its parent company. FAME includes summary data for subsidiaries and dissolved companies.

Don't forget books!  

Check the Library Catalogue for books on larger companies. 

Use the International directory of company histories on Floor 1A. 
This includes summaries of company developments and significant events.

Annual Reports

These tell you about a company in their own words and also give you financial information. 

Most annual reports are online via the company's website.  Look for links to Corporate information, Investor relations or similar. 

Larger companies financial information for 10 years is amalgamated and can be analysed for profit/loss, turnover, ratios, stocks and shares and much more using:

For more information or for older reports try:

• Companies House Beta Search - publicly available company information (this government department controls the incorporation and dissolution of all UK limited companies). 

• SEC filings and forms EDGAR - inside information about US public companies, including company profiles and press releases plus the filings made to the Securities Exchange Commission giving financial data and management reports. 

• London Stock Exchange - share prices, statistics and FTSE indices.

Other eResources

Use ProQuest Business to find articles, market research and newspapers on a company by limiting your search using the options provided: 

Use the FT to find the most recent news on a particular company and use newspaper archives for older materials:

Additional information for some companies can be located in:

Mintel and Cobra may provide useful market research and industry information:

What are case studies?

Some case studies are specially written for use in business education.
These are often produced by academic institutions or professional bodies.

Case studies may be based on real companies, organisations and events or they can be fictional. 

The phrase is also used to refer to any short description of a company or other organisation, focusing on a particular issue. This type of case study can be found in books, to illustrate points made in the text, or in journal articles.  

Use the phrase "case studies" (alongside another term such as marketing) in the Library Catalogue to find such material.

Which eResources have case studies?

Use the filters on the left to restrict your search to case studies:

Useful websites 

MarketingSherpa
Specific marketing case studies. 

PR Week
Public relations case studies.

CIPR
​Member only case studies from the Chartered Institute of Public Relations.   

Case Centre - free cases  
Case studies from a number of organisations, covering a range of subjects. 

MIT Sloan Management Learning Edge Case Studies 
Teaching case studies on leadership and entrepreneurship as well as operations, strategy and more...  

Health and Safety Executive - Business Case studies
General business case studies as well as those on SMEs and larger businesses

Undergraduate and Masters projects

If you wish to access good practice examples of final year projects, dissertations or Masters theses please contact your lecturer.

Doctoral theses