Citing Business Sources: Citing Business Sources

Some business sources require adaptations to APA guidelines. For example, IBISWorld offers their own template for how to cite their industry reports, but it is incomplete. A few principles used to create the examples on this page include:

• If there is no title, put a description of the resource in square brackets.
• Provide the name of the database and the URL you retrieved information from when it is necessary for readers to be able to retrieve the information from that database. For example, this is necessary for a data set from Simmons, but you do not need to name the database from which you retrieved a scholarly article (like Business Source Complete).
• As with 'regular' articles, do not state 'Retrieved from' or the database name; instead, only list the home page of the source (not the proxied URL as it appears in your web browser)
• Always arrange the references in your References list in alphabetical order, and format each entry with a hanging indent

Towson University. (2019, June 5). TU’s new brand is named ‘Best Rebrand Campaign' [Press Release]. https://www.towson.edu/news/2019/ama_mxaward.html

Note: IBISWorld contains several different types of published information, each requiring slightly different citation details.

Note: Cite the entire report, even if only one particular chapter is used.

Reference list format:

Lastname, F. M. (Year, Month). Title of industry report, Report number. [Type of resource]. Publisher. Publisher URL

Guiguis, J. (2023, October). Colleges & universities in Canada, 61131ACA. [Industry report]. IBISWorld. https://www.ibisworld.com/

In-text citation format: (Lastname, YYYY) (Guiguis, 2023)

If citing multiple reports by the same author in the same publication year, include the report number in your in-text citation:

(Guiguis, 61131ACA, 2023)

Note: Business environment profiles are published without an author name. As with industry reports,cite the entire business environment profile, and not an individual chapter or chapters, even if only one chapter is used.

Reference list format:

Title of business environment profile, Report number. (Year, Month). [Type of resource]. Publisher. Publisher URL

Research and development expenditure, CA110. (2023, October). [Canada business environment profiles report]. IBISWorld. https://www.ibisworld.com/

In-text citation format: (Report Number, YYYY) (CA110, 2023)

Note: There are many charts that can be exported from IBISWorld as PNG or CSV files and used in papers and presentations. These must be cited independently.

Reference list format:

Title of graphic data. (Year, Month). In Title of industry report, Report number. [Type of resource]. Publisher. Publisher URL

Market share concentration: Combined market share of the four largest companies in this industry. (2023, Oct). In Colleges & universities in Canada, 61131ACA. [Graphic data]. IBISWorld. https://www.ibisworld.com/

In-text citation format: (Shortened title, YYYY) (Market share concentration, 2023)

Hoover's Inc. (2020, January 1). T. Rowe Price Group, Inc.; Hoover's company records - in-depth records. http://www.hoovers.com

Conway, J. (2019, January). Net sales of McCormick & Company Inc. worldwide from 2011 to 2018. Statista. https://www.statista.com