BUS 447: Business Ethics: Home

Keep up with the latest business headlines. Some require subscriptions to access fulltext.

Use this guide to help find resources for BUS 447.

Before you start your research, think about where you would look for information to complete this assignment.  Who might be interested in this type of information? What discipline would be studying these questions? What kind of assignment is this? What are the requirements?

Let's use the topic of whistleblowers as an example. Most of you will probably not know enough about whistleblowers to start more than a simple Google search using the word whistleblower. In such cases, a good first place to start your research is by checking an encyclopedia for an overview of the topic. This will give a little bit of knowledge that will help us come up with additional or more sophisticated search terms. For example, the encyclopedia will probably list famous cases and provide the names of relevant laws and regulations. You can then decide to follow up on those which most appeal to you.

What are some synonyms for whistleblowers? Mudrakers, informers, informants, snitches are all possibilities, depending on the era we are investigating. The Whistleblower Protection Act, The False Claims Act, and Dodd-Frank are all relevant legislation. What are some recent names associated with high-profile whistleblowing stories? Julian Assange and Edward Snowden come to mind. Are they heroes or traitors? What are the reasons that people think of them as one or the other? Are those reasons justified? What is the difference between an internal and an external whistleblower? Do whistleblowers need legal protection? Why or why not?

Information on how to find books at the University Libraries is included under the Honors Service Component tab for those of you who might be interested in using print material. 

The video below is a quick 6 minute overview of a good resource for finding information on controversial issues.

There is no sound on the video but I've added some notations to help guide you along. The idea was to show you how to navigate through the Opposing Viewpoints database to find resources for your papers and also use the issues list as a way to choose a topic.