Selected Resources
MACC 413
Spring Semester, 2007
Table of Contents
Overview
This course includes a group project in which you study a course-related accounting topic of interest to you or survey some annual reports and discuss the particular accounting treatments you observe in a sample of companies. In addition to looking at the bibliographies of readings in the course, the best resources are the Accounting and Tax Index and ABI-Inform Global. They are described below. An annotated list of more sources of relevant articles and resources for accessing companies' financial reports begins on after the Best Resources section .
Best Resources

Journal Indexes (Qualitative Information)

  1. ABI-Inform Global. This indexes journal articles with some articles that are full text
  2. Accounting and Tax Index (Print Only),016.657/A512ab: Principal index for accounting and tax articles. Available in PRINT ONLY.

Company Financial Information (Quantitative Information)

  1. Company Web Pages, e.g., Dell Inc. Includes annual reports to shareholders (financial statements) and other company related information.
  2. Factiva. Selected financial statement information from the Reuters database. Click on the Company/Markets section financial reports.
  3. Investext. Analysts stock research reports from over 500 stock brokerage firms and investment banks.
  4. Securities and Exchange Commission's Edgar. SEC Filings, e.g., 10K report.

Industry Ratios (These important resources are available ONLY in print)

  1. Industry Norms and Key Business Ratios . 338.5/I42/FM-1-Ref. Latest on Reserve with earlier editions in the stacks.
  2. RMA Annual Statement Studies . 338/R642/FM-1-Ref. Latest on Reserve with earlier editions in the stacks
Here are additional resources that may assist with your project :

Books
There are two resources that will assist in locating items in the Lehigh University Libraries. It is:

  1. ASA, The Library's Online Catalog. This lists all the items in the library and their location.

Remember: Use ASA to locate books, journals, A-V materials, and CD-ROMs.

Industry Information
These resources can be used to locate information on industries. They are:
  1. Associations Unlimited. Good for finding the industry's association and other related associations.
  2. Investext. It has analyst reports covering more than 11,000 U.S. and international companies and 53 industries. These reports come from over 500 Wall Street and international brokerage firms.
  3. Journal indexes list articles on industries. See the Journal Index section for a listing of indexes.
  4. North American industry classification system, United States. 317.3/U588sa/ FM-1-R-Ref. T his is available in print or on the WWW. Its URL is http://www.census.gov/epcd/www/naics.html.
  5. Standard and Poor's NetAdvantage. This has information on industries, stocks, mutual funds and companies. It has the Industry Surveys.
Industry Ratios
  1. Almanac of Business and Financial Ratios. 338.973/T864/FM-1-Ref. Latest on Reserve and earlier editions in the stacks.
  2. Factiva. This information is available through the Company/Market section.
  3. Industry Norms and Key Business Ratios. 338.5/I42/FM-1-Ref. Latest on Reserve with earlier editions in the stacks. Produced by Dun and Bradstreet.
  4. RMA Annual Statement Studies. 338/R642/FM-1-Ref. Latest on Reserve and earlier editions in the stack s. This is formerly the Robert Morris Associates, Annual Statement Studies.
Company and Stock Information
These resources are good for finding information on companies. They are:
  1. Company Web Sites. These site provide good quantitative and qualitative information. REMEMBER:The companies that issue the information maintain these pages.
  2. Factiva. The Company/Markets search has the financial information including 5 years of annual financials and latest six quarters of financial information.
  3. SEC Edgar Database. (See World Wide Web for description.) Its URL is http://www.sec.gov/.
  4. Standard and Poor's NetAdvantage. This has information on industries, stocks, mutual funds and companies. It has the Industry Surveys.
Journal Indexes
Locating articles with quantitative and qualitative information on companies and industries may be found using these indexes. Some indexes have full text articles. Either click on this URL: http://databases.lib.lehigh.edu/finder/ or on the desired database. They are:
  1. ABI-Inform Global . Indexes over 1400 journals in management and business. Coverage is from 1987 for most journals. About 45% of the articles are available in full text.
  2. Accounting and Tax Index. Available only in print and is shelved in Index Section, Reference, Fairchild Library. Its former name is the Accountant's Index, Supplement. This indexes the accounting literature and is available only in citation format.
  3. CCH Internet Tax Research Network. This includes the Internal Revenue Code (IRC), court decisions related to taxation, tax regulations and CCH's explanations of the IRS.
  4. Econlit. A good index for the research journals that cover company information from a business and economic perspective.
  5. Factiva. It has over 10000+ publications (full text) with some back to the early 1980's.
Electronic Journals
Another source of full text journal articles is the electronic journal (a.k.a. e-journal). We have access to many e-journal collections through a variety of sources. To access them, click on this URL: http://www.lehigh.edu/library/ejournals/ejournals.html. The following sources have economic, finance and management journals that will help with your research. They are:
  1. Emerald Library. This resource is heavily weighted in the management area. It is a good source for supply chain management information. (NOTE: Search Engine for Emerald Library is not a good one.)
  2. JSTOR. This is a good source for locating items concerning logistics and management of the items over a period of time. (NOTE: this has a four to five year delay in mounting the articles.).
  3. Wiley Interscience. This has a number of economic and management journals that can be useful in locating material on your topic.
World Wide Web
 Using a search engine, e.g., Google, you will find information that may be useful.  Examples are government, associations, and companies.   They provide facts, figures, and reports that may be important to your research.  There are multi-search engines that makes searching the Web more efficient.  Dogpile.com is an example of these multi-search engines.  Its URL is http://www.dogpile.com.  Remember: anyone can put up a web page with information. Is the information on the web page reliable?

Statistical Resources on the Web are:
  1. Company Web Pages. These are good sources of financial information but the companies that issue the information maintain these pages.
  2. SEC Edgar Database. This is also available via Factiva's Companies/Markets Company Quick Search option and the Standard and Poor's Market Insight.
  3. Yahoo.com. It is an excellent site for company information.

There are additional resources including web sites that can assist you in locating information on an industry, legal information, marketing, statistics, etc. The first sites are related to accounting. They are:

  1. American Accounting Association. Its URL is http://www.rutgers.edu/Accounting/raw/aaa. Or for the Rutgers Accounting Web site, its URL is http://raw.rutgers.edu/.
  2. American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA). Its URL is http://www.aicpa.org.
  3. Rutgers Accounting Web site (or RAW). This is the largest accounting web site on the Internet. Its URL is http://raw.rutgers.edu/.

Other accounting resources include the following:

  1. Academy of Accounting Historians. Its URL is http://weatherhead.cwru.edu/Accounting.
  2. Advancing Government Accountability. Offers links and information relating to government accounting.
  3. Bond Market Association. Represents securities firms and banks that deal in debt securities. It has information and links for research in areas including statistics, policy issues, and regulatory issues.
  4. CPANews. Site reports accounting professionals product news. Offers articles, link to online CPE courses and more. Examples of URLs for the big accounting firms are Ernst and Young (URL is http://www.eyi.com) and KPMG (URL is http://www.kpmg.com).
  5. Financial Accounting Standards Board. Its mission is to establish and improve standards of financial accounting and reporting for the guidance and education of the public, including issuers, auditors, and users of financial information. The FASB Statements in full text, plus summaries, and status are available at this site.
  6. General Accounting Office of the United States. Its URL is http://www.gao.gov/.
  7. Institute of Internal Auditors. This is the primary international professional association of auditors.

These web sites are related to industries and may provide additional information. They are:

  1. Aerospace Industries Association of America (AIA). URL is http://www.aia-aerospace.org/.
  2. American Bankers Association (ABA). URL is http://www.aba.com.
  3. National Association of Chain Drug Stores (NACDS). URL is http://www.nacds.org.
  4. National Restaurant Association. URL is http://www.restaurant.org.
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