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Thinking Outside the "Box"

Thinking Outside the "Box": Teaching Supply Chain Research. This guide supports Chapter # in Teaching Business Information Literacy

Why read trade journals?

To understand your own industry, your suppliers’ industries, and your customers’ industries

  • locate news and trends in marketing, finance, and operations
  • find analysis and reporting on government regulation within an industry
  • gain insights on competitors within an industry
  • keep up on latest product and service innovations
  • Comprehend key drivers to commodity supply, demand, and pricing (some journals provide price indices, especially if a commodity based industry).

What type of journal?

  Popular Magazines/News Trade/Professional Scholarly/Academic
Purpose To inform and entertain To apply information; to provide professional support To communicate research and scholarly ideas
Author Journalists, Freelance writers, Essayists, Bloggers Practitioners in the industry and field, occasionally scholars translating research to practice Scholars and academics at research institutions
Format Magazines, Newspapers, Blogs Trade journals and trade magazines Academic journals
Audience General public

Practitioners in the field [Note: useful to students researching application and professional practice]

 Other scholars, students researching the latest research
Frequency Daily, Weekly, Monthly, Bi-Monthly Weekly, Monthly, Bi-Monthly, Quarterly, Semi-Annually, Annual Quarterly, Semi-Annually, Annual
Examples Forbes, Wall Street Journal, Economist, Time, Buzzfeed AdAge, Harvard Business Review, Oil & Gas Journal

Journal of Accounting Literature, Marketing Research

Finding Trade Journals

Trade journals exist to provide current information to people within an industry or profession.

Under the advanced search features of many article databases you can specify the type of publication you wish to search. Trade journals are sometimes listed as professional journals or trade publications.

Use keywords to search for relevant articles (for example: "footwear manufacturing" AND operations). You can also search these databases using NAICS codes under advanced search.

[These resources are all subscription resources and link back to the subscribing library. If you copy, please make sure you update the links as appropriate for your institution.]