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ISC 325: Strategic Audience Insights

Guide for course providing a systematic framework for uncovering andunderstanding strategic audiences’ motivations, influences, and decision-making processes.

Public vs Private Companies

Information on private companies is much more difficult to gather than it is for public companies. While public companies are required by law to disclose detailed financial information to the SEC (available from the EDGAR database), this is not the case with private companies, who can decide for themselves how much they wish to make available. 

To find information on private companies, try:

  • Searching in business databases that index articles from scholarly journals, trade publications, magazines, and newspapers.
  • Searching in newspaper databases.
  • Looking at the company's website: companies provide deferring amounts of information, from none to quite a bit. The information may be under small print links with labels like "financial information," "investor information," "public information," "new products," or "fact sheets."

Databases

New York Times

Interested in accessing the New York Times online? UK provides access to students, faculty, and staff. Sign up below with the first link, and use the second link to access it after registering.

Wall Street Journal

Interested in accessing the Wall Street Journal online? UK provides access to students, faculty, and staff. Sign up below and use the link for access.

Potential Sources of Company Information

  • The company website
  • Social media
  • Product reviews
  • Reddit