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Can anyone help me with research resources?

 
 
COG
08:30 / 19.05.07
I've been given a project at work, to dig up some figures, stats etc on the highly interesting world of outsourced tele marketing. Specifically, why it's a great idea to outsource the lead generation part of a sales operation (if this is boring you, you have an inkling of what it's doing to my beautiful soul. It beats sitting on the phones though).

So far I seem to be finding tons of vague, general articles all intended to get you to sign up to a website or pay $1000 for the real meaty stats and reports.

Does anyone know of any academic resources for this type of field? Or free studies, government figures etc etc. I can't seem to find a way in through the impenetrable wall of guff. I know absolutely nothing about the subject, my only qualification for the job being my English speaking.

Any pointers gratefully received.
 
 
Jack Vincennes
14:35 / 19.05.07
If you're looking for academic research (and I'm assuming your company are not going to stump up for JSTOR access) it's probably worth checking the "Faculty" pages of some business schools (esp, obviously, the marketing subject areas). Most of them will have their research or working papers online, and many of them will provide you with a PDF of the paper itself. Alternatively, it might take a bit of trekking around the web to actually find the information itself - it took about 3 moves to get from the Harvard BS website to this interview about a faculty paper - but at least you'll know what you're looking for.

You might also need to sign up for some of the sites - it looks like you do for Wharton, for example - but I doubt you'd have to pay if it's from the B school's own site. Here are the FT rankings -I'd suggest starting at the top and working your way down as the better the faculty they have the more likely they are to want to yell about their work!

Alternatively, you could try sticking your search terms into scholar.google.com. Actually, that might also be the best idea if you find an article you can't get direct from the website -I've just found a link to the PDF of the paper I mentioned above (here - link opens as a PDF).
 
 
COG
16:19 / 19.05.07
thanks. That scholar google thing was exactly the type of thing that is not in my brain, not ever having done any serious research on anything before.

Will check those links tomorrow and report back.
 
  
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