Pacific business

Key databases | Journals | Theses and dissertations | Business directories

Key databases

  • ABI/INFORM
    In-depth coverage of a large number of business journals, magazines and newspapers.
  • Asia-Studies Full-Text Online
    Reports published by APEC and leading research institutes.
  • Australia & New Zealand Newsstream
    A selection of full-text newspapers and newswires from Australia and New Zealand covering regional and international topics.
  • Australia/New Zealand Reference Centre
    Academic journals, magazines, newspapers, newswires, reference books and company information from Australian, New Zealand and selected overseas magazines.
  • Business Source Premier
    An extensive business research database offering information in nearly every area of business including management, economics, finance, accounting and international business using both scholarly and popular sources.
  • Factiva
    Global news, business news, company news and industry information content.
  • Informit
    A multidisciplinary suite of New Zealand and Australian full-text databases from which single or multiple databases can be searched.
  • International Financial Statistics (IFS)
    From the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and containing time series of financial and macroeconomic data for over 200 countries and areas.
  • Newztext Plus
    Full text of some of New Zealand's news and business publications.
  • PINI
    Pacific Islands publications, including newspapers and reports.
  • Project Muse
    Full-text books and scholarly journals in the humanities and social sciences.

Top of page

Journals

Top of page

Theses and dissertations

Top of page

Business directories

Top of page

Economic overviews | Country information | Market intelligence | Trade and investment

Economic overviews

  • Business Source Premier
    Contains Pacific Islands country reports from the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) in London, examining and explaining the issues shaping countries: the political scene, economic policy, domestic economy, sectoral trends, and foreign trade and payments.
  • EIU Viewswire
    Part of ABI/Inform, provides brief overviews for countries. General topics covered include business, economy, politics, finance, regulations and risk wire.
  • Factiva
    Contains company profiles and news articles from the Asia Pacific region. Tip: change the search interface from the default Free Text Search to Search Form to build searches and limit to the Pacific Islands region if desired.

Top of page

Country information

  • CIA World Factbook
    Current basic information on social, economic and political indicators.
  • The Pacific
    From the Australian Government's Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT), includes Pacific Islands country factsheets and country profiles.
  • Country Information topic guide
    Developed by the Business Librarians, this resource provides an extensive range of sources for country information.

Top of page

Market intelligence

  • Passport
    Provides basic details about the geography, political situation and current business trends in each country. Tip: select the option Countries & Consumers in the Find Analysis box on the landing page.
  • Business Monitor International
    Use a keyword search for Pacific Islands or individual countries.

Top of page

Trade and investment

General

  • Trade and Investment
    From the Australian Government's DFAT, includes information on foreign affairs and trade relationships with Pacific Island nations.
  • Pacific Islands Trade and Invest
    Part of the Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat, this agency aims to develop and promote industry and business in 14 Pacific Island countries, focusing on export facilitation, investment and tourism promotion.
  • Globalisation, trade and investment subject guide
    Provides information on trading agreements and blocs, and includes a section on Asia Pacific.

Development banks and finance ministries

Development banks of each Pacific Island country contain substantial trade and investment information.

Ministries of Finance are also primary sources of business and economic information on Pacific Island countries (e.g., Western Samoa).

Cook Islands

Fiji

Samoa

Solomon Islands

Tonga

Vanuatu

Top of page

Search tips | Company reports and profiles | Setting up a business in the Pacific | Financial information | Investment | Ownership | Taxation | Pacific law

Search tips

  • Company information can be sourced from a variety of places so you may need to look at a number of resources.
  • Confidentiality or commercial sensitivity are the most likely reasons for some information being unavailable.
  • For small and most unlisted companies in the Pacific Islands information is very limited, particularly financial information.
  • Also check databases which index journals and newspapers, such as Factiva, ABI Inform or Business Source Premier.
    You can often piece together information about a company by analysing information from journal and newspaper articles.
  • Try a Google search.

Company reports and company profiles

  • Mergent
    Includes annual reports in PDF from 1990 onwards. Also provides company synopsis, history, joint ventures, subsidiaries, long term debt, executives, and news.
  • Business Source Premier
    Visit Company Profiles to view a list of company names listed alphabetically, with complete reports available in PDF.

Setting up a business in the Pacific

  • Doing Business from the World Bank contains useful guides including Starting a business in Samoa and in Tonga, Papua New Guinea, Fiji, Kiribati, Micronesia, and the Solomon Islands. Information includes registration and set up time needed to establish a company in a Pacific Island economy. The Law Library section covers legislative requirements. A current list of contact people and organisations is available with each guide.
  • Pacific Island Trade & Invest, an agency of the Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat, develops, grows and promotes industry and business in all 14 Pacific Island countries in export, investment, tourism and creative arts across international markets.

Top of page

Financial information

  • Datastream
    Listed companies in the Pacific region back to 1973.

Investment

  • South Pacific Stock Exchange (SPSE)
    Currently the only licensed securities exchange in the Fiji Islands. Includes Stock Exchange Listing Rules and announcements.

Ownership

Taxation

  • Paying taxes
    Reports produced by PricewaterhouseCoopers and the World Bank, investigating and comparing tax regimes across 189 economies worldwide, including Pacific countries. Uses company case studies, and ranks them according to the ease of paying taxes.

Pacific law

Send Money Pacific
Compares money transfer fees and rates, created through a joint Australian and New Zealand Government-led initiative.

Top of page

Microfinance

Searching for information on microfinance? Try these keywords in the Catalogue:

  • Economic assistance Oceania
  • Microfinance Pacific
  • Microfinance Oceania

Microfinance initiatives

Women in business

Education and training

New Zealand | Pacific | Universities

New Zealand

Pacific

Top of page

Universities

Top of page

Search strategy | Where to search? | Building on your research

Search strategy

  • Analyse your research question. Identify the important concepts within the topic.
  • Choose keywords that describe the concepts and/or terms.
  • Determine whether there are synonyms and related terms that should be included in your search.
  • Search using various combinations of the keywords/concepts, synonyms and related terms.

Subject headings

These are standard terms for particular topics or subject matter you can use to search the Catalogue.
To locate items tagged with a subject heading:

  1. Try a keyword search and look at the Details of a relevant item. To view other items with similar subject matter, click on any terms listed as Subjects.
  2. If you know a specific subject heading for a topic, use an Advanced Search for the exact phrase in the subject field.

Subject headings relevant to Pacific business research:

  • Oceania economic conditions
  • Oceania commerce
  • Pacific small business, Pacific entrepreneurship, Businessmen Oceania
  • Pacific Islanders Commerce New Zealand
  • Oceania Social Life and Customs
  • Pacific Area
  • Pacific Islanders New Zealand Social Life and Customs
  • Polynesia, Melanesia, Micronesia
  • Samoa, Tonga, Cook Islands, New Caledonia, Papua New Guinea

Tips:

  • Use Islands of the Pacific rather than Pacific Islands. Also try searching for Islands of the Pacific commerce.
  • Use Oceania for an overview of the region, or try Oceania economic conditions.

Top of page

Where to search?

  • The Catalogue finds books, journal titles, theses, multimedia and images, journal, magazine and newspaper articles. For a more targeted search, try searching within subject databases.
  • To find out whether an item is held elsewhere in New Zealand search Te Puna, the National Union Catalogue.
  • For detailed information on searching see the Business Information Skills Online tutorial and access other tutorials and guides via Study skills.

Top of page

Building on your research

Additional strategies you can use to build on information you already have. Start with a book or article that is relevant to your research topic:

  • Look at the list of references to find further relevant research.
  • Words used in the text of your book or article provide useful new terms to use when searching for more literature.
  • Search the Library databases for more publications by a particular author.
  • Search for citations to your original book or article. You can do citation searching on:

Some databases, such as Scopus, Science Direct and Google Scholar, also link to related articles.

Sage Research Methods offers information on getting started with your research including various methodologies which can be applied in Business and Economics studies.

Top of page

APA

The Business School uses APA style for referencing.

Journal of the Polynesian Society referencing style

Support

  • Referencing
    Access a range of tools and support material to assist your referencing work.

Examples

  • Quick©ite
    Use this interactive tool to view examples of references.
    Covers a range of styles used at the University of Auckland.

Last updated : 28 November 2022
Creative Commons License CC BY 4.0 Tautohu Matatiki 4.0 ā-Ao