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NAICS (North American Industry Classification System) codes play an important role in business research. To briefly review, the system classifies business establishments by type of economic activity and reflects the businesses and industries of Canada, Mexico, and the United States and updated every 5 years. I detailed recent changes to the system in the July/August 2022 issue of Online Searcher ("Changes to NAICS Affects Researchers"). In this article, I delve into the intricacies of code creation and how that affects research.
The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) created the NAICS system to be the standard used by federal statistical agencies to collect, analyze, and publish statistical data related to the business economy. Statistical Policy Directive Number 8 clearly states: "NAICS shall not be used in the administration of any regulatory, administrative, or tax program unless the Secretary (Administrator) has first determined that the use of such industry definition is appropriate to the implementation of the program's objectives. ... The use, interpretation, and application of NAICS for nonstatistical purposes is controlled by and defined by the agencies or regulations that use the statistical standard for those nonstatistical purposes" (federalregister.gov/ documents/2020/02/26/2020-03797/2017-north-american-in du stry-classification-system-naics-updates-for-2022-updateof-statistical).
Meant by the federal government to be a statistical tool and not intended to define in which industry a company operates, NAICS codes have nonetheless been repurposed as thesaurus terms and searchable fields in many library subscription databases. As a business librarian, I use NAICS daily. When creating a B2B list of competitors or buyers, for example, the company's contacts are searchable and retrieved by NAICS in Data Axle (formerly InfoUSA's Reference Solutions) or any other directory service. I can rank those companies to find market share. In Data Axle, search on a specific NAICS (or SIC [Standard Industrial Classification]) code either from Additional Filters on the Quick Search page or from the Advanced Search page. Search options include All NAICS or Primary NAICS.
When I have to find articles about coal mining, I search 2121· in the NAICS field in ProQuest's ABI/INFORM. EBSCO's Business Source databases also allow for NAICS code searching when you are looking for articles. NAICS codes are used by Mergent in its Mergent Intellect and Mergent Online databases containing company information. The lynchpin to industry analysis is...