Selecting the sources:

Where, then, are you going to get your information? And where do you start? The best place to start is from what you already know. Go back over books with which you are familiar and key general textbooks to consolidate your existing knowledge. These are often useful in providing definitions of terms and setting out the parameters of the subject area.

However, you will need to go deeper into the subject area than is likely to be the case with the subject reviews and overviews in general management texts. You need to identify more specific information. Some of this will be in other books, but you will also need to look at journals and magazines to access more in-depth academic studies and articles about recent research and current thinking. (Journal articles, in particular, provide insight into the approach to academic work similar to - although usually at a higher level than - your dissertation and also into research methodologies which you may find useful for your own work.)
There are various ways of identifying the sources you need:

• identifying journals and magazines appropriate to your area of study and checking the indexes for suitable articles;

• following up references and bibliographies in books and articles;

• browsing the library catalogues, or even the shelves;

• referring to specialist reading lists from other parts of your course; and

• the Internet.