ENTREPRENEURSHIP

To the unaided eye, Entrepreneurship seems as if it is the same as management. This is very much not true. After all, not all Entrepreneurs make good managers and vice versa. The difference is that Entrepreneurs look ahead and start things that don't exist yet. Entrepreneurship as a subject is best known in connection with small business, but it doesn't have to be small. This guide is for Entrepreneurship, but the guides for business, accounting, insurance, and economics contain many resources that will be useful for Entrepreneurship and should be thought of as a part of this guide.

DATABASES

EBSCO
As ever, EBSCO is a great way to do research. It is actually an aggregator, and that means that it searches lots of different databases at the same time. For business-related information, one might want to select these particular ones (to avoid getting irrelevant hits):

Academic Search Premier
Business Source Complete
Legal Collection
Newspaper Source
Regional Business News
Vente et Gestion (business journals in French)
Economia y Negocios (business journals in Spanish)
Hospitality & Tourism Index
Academic Search Complete

Electronic Journals
This allows you to browse ULM's available journals by name, so you can know very quickly whether or not we have the publication you want.

JSTOR - The scholarly journal archive
There are many journals on JSTOR-- it means "Journal storage." You can search by issues and genres, and inside the article text itself. JSTOR brings you journal pages just as they appear in print-- and just about as usefully.

LexisNexis Academic Search
LexisNexis has devoted a specific part of its powerful database interface to Business research (accessible by clicking the corresponding link on the left of the front-page). Using it will be extremely useful as it has detailed company information, news, journals, and more. Also, don't forget the general news or the Legal Research option.

Mergent Online
This resource can produce a lot of things, including very detailed profiles of companies with codes, numbers, recent stocks, contact information, summaries of what they are, financial info, competitors, and more.

INTERNET RESOURCES

The Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership Clearinghouse on Entrepreneurship Education (CELCEE)
"CELCEE acquires information related to entrepreneurship education from diverse sources, including journal articles, websites, syllabi, conferences, pamphlets, curriculum guides, government publications, videos, books, computer software, and more." It can be searched and browsed, and sometimes links to full text or at least has an abstract.

The Family Firm Institute
"The Family Firm Institute is an international professional membership organization dedicated to providing interdisciplinary education and networking opportunities for family business advisers, consultants, educators and researchers and to raising public awareness about trends and developments in the family business field." The site includes facts and figures, mailing list, Related Links, Family Business Cases, and more.

Google Groups
This is one way to get to newsgroups. There are other ways, like configuring email programs to do it, but Google Groups is the best for its search capability and easy interface. It's a big improvement, because the Usenet has been around since the 1980s, making it one of the oldest public uses of the internet. There are oceans of groups to choose from. Misc.entrepreneurs could be a good place to begin, but there's more to find.

Inc. Magazine
If you liked the magazine to begin with, you might like this too, but you don't need to be a subscriber to enjoy this website. Being a magazine, it has the looks and content of a popular magazine website. Good for news, opinions, current tips, and more.

Kaufmann Venturing
Formerly called entreworld.org, This site has a glossary, blog, articles, and more giving advice on how to handle many aspects of entrepreneurship, like Finance, HR, sales, and much more.

The International Franchise Association
This site offers very detailed contact information on many U.S. franchises, which includes logos for many that have them. There are useful links, a discussion forum (AKA a BBS), news, events, and more. You do not need to be a member of IFA to use it.

The Minority Business Development Agency (MBDA)
This is related to the U.S. Department of Commerce and as its name suggests, it was made to promote the growth of businesses owned by minorities. It provides information on how to start businesses, get contracts, grants, loans, and more. There is also an FAQ and discussion board.

http://www.morebusiness.com/
This is a rather useful site with sample business plans, marketing small business, sample contracts and more.

Topica: Small Business
Email discussion groups are a great way to find current information pertaining to the business of interest to you. This website has information on a lot of them, and they're free to subscribe to.

http://www.startupjournal.com
This is a Wall Street Journal website made specifically for Entrepreneurs. It has guides on how to do many things with a business, from starting it or expanding it. It also has a service listing businesses and franchises that are for sale. There are links to other Wall Street Journal websites like CollegeJournal on the page, so if you liked this site you might like those too.

The U.S. Small Business Administration
This rather large site has been created specifically for small business owners, and the purpose appears to be helping people start and maintain businesses. One part of this website that is of particular interest is State Economic Profiles, which reports on the condition of small business by location and by year while being surprisingly easy to browse. Its Office of Advocacy has a portion of itself set aside for research, which can be useful as it has small business statistics, research, news, and more. It also serves as a way for small business to be heard within the federal government.

http://www.vetbiz.gov/
"...a Veteran Resource Information web site designed to assist veteran entrepreneurs who want to start and expand their businesses in the Federal and private marketplace. This site provides up to the minute information from the Federal Government as it pertains to Service Disabled and Veteran Owned Small Businesses."


This is not everything, of course. Also, most of the resources listed here deal with the practical, although the philosophical certainly isn't unimportant.

Also, please report promptly any ridiculous errors on this page to me: niemla@ulm.edu