It is not uncommon for business faculty to assign a company research project. Expectations as to what that report will contain is determined by the assigning faculty and can vary. It is always very important to read and include or exclude information that is or is not requested by your professor. If you have any questions, do not hesitate to contact your professor.
When researching a company, it is important to know whether it ispublic, privateor asubsidiaryof a larger company.
Public companiessell shares of the company (stocks) to the general public, and are required to submit financial information and annual reports to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Public companies are therefore easier to research as a general rule of thumb.
Privatecompaniesdo not sell publicly traded stocks and as a result, are not required to release as much information to the government or the general public. They are therefore more challenging to research.
Subsidiariesof public companies can be difficult to research because the parent company is not required to report on each of them individually. Therefore, when researching a subsidiary, you often have to read carefully through reports about the parent and look for references to the subsidiary.
When looking for information about a company, consider both informationfrom the companyitself (e.g., the company website, SEC filings, press releases, etc.) as well asinformation about the companywritten by others (e.g., newspaper articles, analyst reports, articles by professors, etc.).
Finding information about a company includes the following steps:
Plagiarism is using other people's ideas without giving them proper credit for it. When you do this, you are implying that the ideas are your own. Doing this violates ethical standards. It can also endanger your grade. Use these resources to cite sources and avoid plagiarism:
