Answered Questions

This question requires a lot of critical thinking!

Begin by linking to the Business LibGuide at http://libguides.brenau.edu/business .

Books

First, I would look for an overview to help frame the big picture issues in the question. Overviews are found in books. In the LibGuide, click on the tab labeled Business Administration - Books. At the center top you will see the Online Books. Click the link eBooks on EBSCOHOST. Be prepared to log in with the first part of your Brenau email address and the pin number you use to access CampusWeb.

I began with a very basic search, offshoring. The results included 40 full text books. Some seem to be written at the individual business level, others address the economic issues on the national level. All are quality resources. Among them are Spin-Free Economics by Nariman Behravesh, chief economist for IHS Global Insight, an economic and financial analysis firm.He previously served as chief international economist at Standard & Poor’s. Another book that might prove useful is Understanding Global Trade from Harvard University Press.

To decide if a book might be worth exploring, click the +Table of Contents link below the description of the book. Anywhere you see a + , clicking it will provide more details. If you like the table of contents, look just above it and click on eBook Full Text. It's not necessary to download the book in order to use it for research.

Once the book opens, you can search the book using the top icon on the right side toolbar.

Articles

You may also need highly specific articles. For these, click on the tab labeled Business Administration - Articles. In the center of the page, scroll down until you see the second collection of articles, ABI/Inform Complete. This is a good starting point for articles. Click on ABI/Inform Complete.

I think the best approach to searching for articles is to look at each variable individually: (1) offshoring AND "economic growth" , (2) offshoring AND "opportunity costs" , (3) offshoring AND "market outcomes" . Note the quotation marks around key phrases such as "economic growth". They tell the search engine to only look for articles where those two words appear side by side, which focuses your results and eliminates clutter you have to look through. In addition to entering the search term, click the Full Text box just below the search box.

Search (1) yields 38 articles published between 2004 - 2011. You can adjust the dates and make other changes using the tools on the right side of the results. The primary adjustment I would make is to Source Type. Click on Source Type. When it opens, you can see that newspapers and magazines are mingled among the higher quality results. Depending on the professor's instructions, these may not be useful. You can eliminate them by clicking More Options and selecting only the types of information you need. Scholarly journals and dissertations are generally considered the best sources, but reports and trade publications can be very useful. You may find articles such as "Offshoring and Wage Convergence" useful. To access that articles, click on the full text link.

You may see crossover between these inter-related topics. For example, the article I just mentioned, "Offshoring and Wage Convergence", also talks about labor market outcomes. This leads to my next suggestion. You may not get many results for "market outcomes" in general. You may need to change that phrase to describe the specific markets you want to investigate, such as "labor market". The books and possibly the course textbook will have ideas as to the specific markets impacted. The same strategy applies to opportunity costs. You may have to name various opportunity costs - lost earnings, lost output, etc.

Business Source Complete, listed on the LibGuide under ABI/Inform Complete, is another good source for articles. If you don't find what you need in one, look in another database.

A final suggestion... offshoring is part of outsourcing. If offshoring doesn' produce results, search outsourcing or offshore AND outsourcing.

If you need more, respond and let us know!