Corporate Information

The following websites provide information on and about corporations or reactions to them. You can find out about their products, their earnings, and their potential growth.  But you can also find out about the affects they have on people's lives.  For additional sites, check out the resources on the capitalist.

Boycott Nabisco
http://www.pitt.edu/~aefst11/index.html

Corporations obviously have enormous power to influence our lives; as capital controllers they move money (and jobs) from place to place in search of the greatest return on their investments, and these moves both create and destroy people's livelihoods.   The Boycott Nabisco site represents one attempt of a group of people to influence the largely financial decisions of a large corporation.  Why does this group ask others to boycott Nabisco?  What is the rationale behind Nabisco's decision?   Who does it affect and how?

Boycott Disney
http://www.laker.net/webpage/Boycott.htm

The site details the activities of the Walt Disney Corporation.  Check particularly the articles on Disney child labor and union busting.

Business Wire

www.businesswire.com/

No frames:
www.businesswire.com/index.htm

A compilation of news stories on business and company press releases.  An excellent source of information on what is happening in various industries.  They also have an extensive collection of Web links. 

Can Corporations Be Accountable?
http://www.monitor.net/rachel/r609.html & http://www.monitor.net/rachel/r610.html

A two-part essay by Richard Grossman that appeared in RACHEL’S ENVIRONMENT & HEALTH WEEKLY on the question of how corporations can be held responsible for their actions.  The essay reviews the history of the corporate charter, and argues that people must reclaim their sovereignty over corporations.

Company Annual Reports Online (CAROL)
http://www.carol.co.uk/

"Company Annual Reports Online (CAROL) is a free corporate service offering direct links to the annual reports of a variety of European companies. The reports are arranged in alphabetical order by company name or industry type for direct searches or browsing. In addition, recent articles and statistics on Investor Relations and the Internet are available from CAROL’s The Marketplace index. [MW]"  (Scout Report for Business and Economics, 9/10/98)

Company Research
http://iws.ohiolink.edu/companies/

Lisa Lowe, Business Reference Librarian, Kent State University, developed this site as an explanatory guide to print and electronic business resources for the beginning researcher. The site is divided into three main parts: Company Research, Industry Research, and a general research, which includes helpful search strategies and basic definitions of business ownership and organization. Examples of business syllabi and library assignments should help students make the leap between course expectations and library research. (The Scout Report for Business and Economics, 11/5/98)

corp-ethics Group
http://www.egroups.com/list/corp-ethics/info.html

"Launched in December 1998, this electronic discussion list seeks to publicize and debate corporate ethical and unethical behavior. Corp-ethics creator Mike P. McKeever encourages list members to share stories about the corporate decisions that affect people, nations, and the environment in order to develop a new code of ethics. A complete searchable archive is available online." (The Scout Report for Business and Economics, 3/25/99)
To subscribe, send a message to:
corp-ethics-subscribe@egroups.com
Do not type anything into the subject line or body of the message.

Corporate Accountability Project

www.envirolink.org/issues/corporate/

Do you want to get the dirt on corporations?  Go to the Corporate Dirt page of the Corporate Accountability Project.  There you can find links to groups and campaigns trying to end corporate abuse, as well as articles on related subjects and issues.  Check out the boycott campaign against some of the giants in the chemical industry.

 

Corporate Information

www.corporateinformation.com/

General information on corporations (financial statements, earning prospects, etc.); prepared largely by the corporations themselves or investment groups for their clients.

Corporate Report Card
http://www.cepnyc.org/ratings.htm

"The Council on Economic Priorities (CEP) prefers to evaluate companies on issues of environmental stewardship, diversity, charitable giving, working conditions, and community involvement, among others instead of by sales alone at the Corporate Report Card site. This database of over 320 companies is searchable by name, industry, or ticker symbol and displays a concise report card with an easy-to-understand grading system. The additional subjects of military contacts and animal testing are available for most entries, and a glossary of key CEP issues helps clarify company performance." (Scout Report for Business and Economics, January 28, 1999)

Corporate Watch

www.corpwatch.org

One of the most comprehensive sites on making people aware of corporate violations of environmental, social, labor, and legal regulations, as well as keeping track of corporate efforts at influencing government decisions and actions.  For example you can access a report on Nike prepared by its auditors and leaked to Corporate Watch. 

Corporate Watch Hot News
www.corpwatch.org/corner/hotnews.html

Stories on specific issues involving corporate abuse and power; you read about the corporate takeover of schools, the campaign by energy companies to undermine the Kyoto Protocol on environmental warming, as well as other stories.

Corporatism and Globalization
http://www.life.ca/subject/corporate.html

The site explores the extent to which corporate power is supplanting that of the nation-state.  Some excellent articles by, among others, Wendy Priesnitz and David Korten.

dowjones.com
http://dowjones.wsj.com/p/main.html

This new portal from the publishers of _The Wall Street Journal_ (WSJ) offers a wide selection of business news and resources. Users can read highlights from the _WSJ_, breaking business news, or view targeted news, research and resources for any of the 29 industries listed. The site also features delayed composite prices on US stocks, with links to background information and press releases, and a targeted search of business and news sites (fee required for full text of articles in the publications library). Additional resources include a markets wrap, news and links related to the US economy, and several aids for managing personal finance. Users may personalize the portal to suit their own interests after free registration. [MD](Scout Report, 6/4/99)

Ending Corporate Governance

www.ratical.com/corporations/dedication.html

Lots of excellent information on the power of corporations, and their repeated violations of environmental, labor, social, and legal regulations, along with information on limiting the power of corporations.  Check out some of the campaigns to revoke corporate charters.  Why should the charter of Unilocal be revoked? 

Executive PayWatch

http://www.paywatch.org/paywatch/index.htm

Would you like to know how much the CEOs in the top coporations are making?   Would you like to find out how the pay of CEOs compares to that of workers?   Check out the answers here.

Focus on the Corporation
http://www.essential.org/monitor/focus/focus.index.html

One of the features on the Multinational Monitor Website, featuring stories on the accumulation of power of multinational corporations.  As they put it, "The multinational corporation is the most powerful institution of our time, dominating not only global economics, but politics and culture as well. The enormous influence of the corporation notwithstanding, the mechanisms of corporate control and the details of corporate abuses remain largely hidden from public perception.  The purpose of the column "Focus on the Corporation" is be to rectify this informational shortcoming, to report and comment critically on corporate actions and plans, from particularized abuses to broad trends."

Forbes 500: The Top 500 Corporations in America (1998)

www.forbes.com/tool/toolbox/forbes500s/

www.pathfinder.com/fortune/fortune500/

Check out the 500 largest corporations in America.  The site contains links to corporate Web pages.

Fortune: 100 Best Companies to Work For
http://cgi.pathfinder.com/fortune/bestcompanies/index.html

Clearly some companies are better to their employees than others.  Forbes provides a list of the top 100 from Synovus Financial to  L.L. Bean. The list was compiled from over 1000 large and midsize firms.  Most, of course, required relatively skilled labor, and are generally far removed from the highly competitive textile, electronic and toy industries that have low profit margins and require cheap labor.  But there are a few surprises. 

Global 500 (with links to individual corporations)

http://www.pathfinder.com/fortune/global500/500list.html

Check out the 500 largest corporations in the world.  As we mention in Global Problems and the Culture of Capitalism, among the 100 richest entities in the world (countries, corporations, etc.), 50 are corporations.  That number has since increased, and is likely to increase even further (especially given the current global financial crisis and the devaluation of many national currencies). 

Hoovers
http://www.hoovers.com/

Hoover’s Online includes information on about 50,000 companies, more than 3,000 links to news sources in its news library, and listings of weekly IPOs. Hoover’s strives to be the comprehensive Website for business professionals.

INC 500 (500 fastest growing companies)

www.inc.com/500/1997.html

Although this guide to industry research by Dennis Smith and Kim Chrobak describes resources at the University of Pittsburgh library, it should be useful for any student interested in US industry trends and data. The guide mainly describes print resources and helps readers locate companies within an industry, market share, and financial ratios, among other industry topics. (Scout Report for Business and Economics, 5/6/1999)

Internet Corruption Perception Index (CPI) 1999
http://www.GWDG.DE/~uwvw/1999.html
Transparency International: 1999 Bribe Payers Index (BPI) http://www.transparency.de/documents/cpi/index.html

IW 1000
http://www.industryweek.com/iwinprint/IW1000/

IndustryWeek's fourth annual report on the 1,000 largest manufacturing companies in the world consists of a searchable database with variables such as Company Name, IW Ranking, Earnings Per Share, and Total Revenue. The site also includes profiles of several of the largest manufacturing companies, an article detailing financial activities in the manufacturing business world in the past year, and an interview with Kim Clark, Dean of the Harvard Business School. [EM] (Scout Report for Business and Economics, 7/1/99)

McSpotlight and the Baby Milk Industry
http://www.mcspotlight.org/beyond/nestle.html

This site examines the affects of the baby milk industry on infant mortality and disease, focusing on those companies that promote breast milk substitutes.

The Monsanto Files
http://www.gn.apc.org/ecologist/septoct/index.htm (Temporarily offline)

The Ecologist has published a series of articles on the Monsanto Corporation, its history, and its role in environmental devastation.  The articles also focus on the relationship between Monsanto and the U.S. regulatory agencies, particularly on the conflict of interest of people who move between corporate employment and governmental oversight.

Multinational Monitor Online

www.essential.org/monitor/monitor.html

Perhaps one of the best sites on the Web on corporate activities and international finance.  Check the Good Works directory that lists employment and career opportunities outside the corporate track.  "This directory, now in its fifth edition, lists the aims and projects of over 1000 organizations and provides background information on contacts, starting salaries and benefits, types of staff openings, available internships, annual budget and funding sources, and the application process. It also profiles individuals who are building public interest careers."  There are also excellent feature articles addressing issues of global economics.

 

NewsReal Industry Watch [JavaScript]

Via CNNfn

cnnfn.news-real.com/

Via Infosee

www.news-real.com

Not Milk
http://www.notmilk.com/

Robert Cohen's site that examines the proposition that milk is hardly the ideal food that we have convinced it is, and provides information on the harmful effects of dairy products that the chemicals that are added to it.

Project Censored
http://censored.sonoma.edu/ProjectCensored/menu.html

The world as we know it through the mass media is filtered through the social and cultural biases of those who report it and who choose what to show and print and what not to.  Often there are events that, for various reasons, are not reported or are underreported whose importance is far greater than their media exposure.  Project Censored offers one solution by each year choosing important stories that, for whatever reason, are not adequately covered.

Researching Companies on the Internet: A Tutorial
http://home.sprintmail.com/~debflanagan/index.html

A useful resource for getting information on corporations.  However the site is designed largely for getting economic information(e.g. sales prospects, home pages, financial information);  there is little on the effects of corporations, and, interestingly, no links to sites such as Corporate Watch or Multinational Monitor that critically examine the actions of corporations.

Researching Corporations

www.corpwatch.org/resrch/resrch.html

This is the site to go to find out the information on corporations that they probably would rather you didn't know; it's not the kind of things you'll find in corporate press releases.  The site contains practical instructions on how to research a particular corporation, as well as links to other groups and campaigns that seek to stop corporate abuse.  Check out the "social responsibility" feature and find out what corporate shareholders can do, and what some groups are doing.

Web100: Big Business on the Web
http://www.w100.com/

This site indexes only "the largest American and international companies on the Web," with links to homepages, five-year income profiles, stock quotes, Hoover company capsules, and reviews from the Dow Jones Business Directory. Top businesses may be searched via the Web100 database or viewed by industry, region, or revenue ranking, and a newswire keeps users abreast of the latest big business headlines. (The Scout Report for Business and Economics, 11/19/98