For a commerce or management dissertation in India, the fastest route to credible journal literature is to check what your own institution already pays for, then add openly available economics indexes, a company-data database if you need firm financials, and a journal quality list to judge what you find. This guide compares the main sources by what each holds, how you get access and what it is best for, using only details that the sources themselves state.
The sources at a glance
| Source | What it is | Facts stated by the source | Access | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| One Nation One Subscription (ONOS) | A central government scheme giving access to international journals | Approved by the Union Cabinet on 25 November 2024; covers more than 6,300 government-managed higher education and central R&D institutions; access to more than 13,000 scholarly journals from 30 major international publishers (PIB, 1 January 2025) | Through eligible government institutions | Full-text international management and economics journals if your institution is covered |
| EconLit | Index of economics literature from the American Economic Association | Over 2 million records covering economics literature of the last 140 years from 75 countries; includes peer-reviewed articles, working papers, PhD dissertations and books | Subscription, usually through a library | Economics, finance and development topics in commerce dissertations |
| IDEAS/RePEc | Open bibliographic database for economics | Indexes over 5,500,000 items, including over 5,000,000 downloadable in full text, with metadata from over 2,400 archives | Openly available on the internet | Working papers and articles when you have no subscription |
| CMIE Prowess | Company financial database from CMIE | Listed in the IIM Ahmedabad library’s database list as CMIE Prowess and CMIE Prowess dx, both with registration required | Library subscription; registration usually required | Firm-level financial data for finance and accounting dissertations |
| ABDC Journal Quality List | Rating of business journals by the Australian Business Deans Council | The council’s site currently publishes the 2025 Journal Quality List with its review report | Published on the council’s site | Judging the standing of a business journal you found |
| UGC-CARE | Indian list of journals for academic purposes | See our guide for what the list now does and does not do | Published list | Checking an Indian journal for institutional purposes |
The short answer: check ONOS and your library first for full text, use EconLit if your library has it and IDEAS/RePEc if it does not, add Prowess only when your design needs company financials, and use the quality list to decide which of the journals you found deserve space in your review.
Step 1: Find out what you can already read
Ask your librarian for the list of databases your institution subscribes to and whether you can log in from home. The ONOS scheme covers government-managed higher education institutions and central government R&D centres, so if you study at one, your eligibility is a library question rather than a purchase decision; if you study at a private institution, ask your own library what it has. A library such as the one at IIM Ahmedabad publishes a long list of company, market and scholarly databases, many marked “registration required”, which shows how much sits behind a campus login. If your institution has none of these, the openly available sources in the table are your starting point.
Step 2: Choose between the economics indexes
EconLit and IDEAS/RePEc overlap but are not the same. EconLit is a subscription index with classification by subject and a Guide to JEL codes, which helps you move from a vague topic to a classified one. IDEAS/RePEc is openly available and strong for working papers. For a topic like capital structure, banking, public finance or development, search both, record the strings you used, and compare results. Keep the matching records in a reference manager; our guide to the best reference management software for Indian researchers compares options.
Step 3: Decide whether you need Prowess
Prowess matters when your objectives require company financial statements, ratios or share-price data for a defined set of firms, such as a study of capital structure or dividend policy across listed companies. If your study is a survey of employees, customers or students, you do not need it. Where your library does not subscribe, the alternatives are the companies’ own annual reports and exchange filings, which are slower to assemble but publicly available, and our comparison of data sources for an M.A. Economics dissertation covers RBI, MoSPI, EPWRF and CMIE side by side. Whichever route you take, confirm with your guide that the data can answer every objective before you start extracting.
Step 4: Use a quality list to judge the journals you found
A search returns journals of very different standing. Two lists help you sort them. The ABDC Journal Quality List rates business journals and is widely used in management research; check the council’s current list rather than a copy someone sent you, and cite the edition you used. For Indian journals, our guide to how to verify a journal in India explains what Scopus, Web of Science, DOAJ and the UGC-CARE list each tell you today. Do not exclude every journal that is not on a list; do be able to say why you included one that is not.
Indian journals worth checking
Three Indian-published journals recur in management reading lists, and their publishers and ISSNs can be confirmed in the Crossref registry: Vikalpa: The Journal for Decision Makers (SAGE Publications, ISSN 0256-0909), IIMB Management Review (Elsevier, ISSN 0970-3896) and the Journal of Indian Business Research (Emerald, ISSN 1755-4195). These are examples to start from, not a ranked list. Check each journal’s standing with the quality list and your guide before building a review around it.
Step 5: Build a search plan from your objectives
- List the constructs. One line per objective, with synonyms.
- Combine terms. Join synonyms with OR and constructs with AND, then add the population or sector.
- Run the plan in each source. Note date, source and string for every search.
- Screen titles, then abstracts, then full texts. Keep a table of what you excluded and why.
- Chain citations. The reference lists of the best three papers give you the next ten.
The reading and writing of the review chapter itself is set out in our guide to the literature review for a PhD thesis in India, and its tabulation habit applies equally at master’s level.
A worked search plan for one illustrative topic
Suppose your objective is to examine the relationship between dividend policy and firm value among listed manufacturing companies. A search plan written before you open a database might look like this:
| Concept | Terms to combine with OR |
|---|---|
| Dividend policy | dividend policy, dividend payout, dividend decision, payout ratio |
| Firm value | firm value, market value, shareholder wealth, Tobin’s Q |
| Setting | India, Indian firms, manufacturing, listed companies, emerging markets |
The three rows are then joined with AND. Run the string in each index, then narrow it by date and subject classification. Record the number of results at each stage, the number you screened out and why, and the number that you read in full. That record is the audit trail an examiner can follow, and it turns “I searched the literature” into a method you can describe in one paragraph of Chapter 2 or Chapter 3.
What to note about each source you use
For every database and index you use, write down four things in your research log: its name and publisher, the date you searched, the filters you applied and the number of results. For a company database, add the extraction date, the list of firms and the variables downloaded, because company data changes as firms restate their accounts. For a regulator’s survey or report, add the edition and year. When your viva asks “where did this number come from?”, the log answers in seconds.
Reading a journal article quickly and fairly
Review chapters go wrong when scholars read abstracts only. A faster, fairer routine is to read the abstract, then the introduction’s last paragraph for the research question, then the data and method section for the sample and tools, then the conclusion for limitations. Four reads of a few paragraphs each give you what you need for a table row: authors, year, setting, sample, method, finding and limitation. Only the papers that matter most to your argument deserve a full read.
Constructs and sources: where to start
Different dissertation topics lean on different sources. For an employee-attitude topic, such as the one in our guide to a job satisfaction dissertation, the key sources are psychology and management journals reached through your library’s full-text access. For a household finance topic, such as the one in our guide to a financial literacy dissertation, the key sources are economics indexes and the survey reports of regulators. For a firm-level finance topic, Prowess or annual reports lead. Matching the topic to the source before you search saves weeks.
Common mistakes
- Searching only Google Scholar. It finds a lot, and misses what is not indexed there; run structured searches too.
- Treating a database as a journal list. A database indexes many journals of unequal quality.
- Quoting a journal rating from memory. Check the current list and say which edition.
- Downloading Prowess data without noting the extraction date and filters. Without them nobody can repeat your sample.
- Forgetting licence terms. A library database is licensed for academic use; read its terms.
Keeping the sources organised while you write
A commerce dissertation accumulates sources fast: articles, filings, datasets and survey reports. Tesify helps you structure your literature chapter and assists you as you write your own wording. More than 9,000 students have used it, it has supported 15,000+ chapters, and every word of your dissertation stays 100% written by you.
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Frequently asked questions
What is One Nation One Subscription?
A scheme approved by the Union Cabinet on 25 November 2024 to give government higher education institutions and central government R&D centres access to more than 13,000 scholarly journals from 30 major international publishers.
Who can use ONOS?
The scheme covers more than 6,300 government-managed higher education institutions and central government-managed R&D institutions. Ask your librarian whether your institution is covered and how to log in.
What does EconLit contain?
Over 2 million records of economics literature from the last 140 years and 75 countries, including journal articles, working papers, PhD dissertations and books, according to the American Economic Association.
Is there an openly available alternative to EconLit?
IDEAS/RePEc is an openly available bibliographic database for economics that indexes over 5,500,000 items, including more than 5,000,000 downloadable in full text.
What is Prowess and do I need it?
Prowess is a company financial database from CMIE, offered by many business-school libraries with registration. You need it only if your design requires firm-level financial data.
What is the ABDC Journal Quality List?
A rating of business journals by the Australian Business Deans Council. Use the current edition on the council’s site and cite the edition you used.
Is the UGC-CARE list still the standard for Indian journals?
See our guide to verifying a journal in India for what the list does today and how to combine it with other checks.
How do I search more than one database without duplicating work?
Run the same planned search string in each source, record the date, source and string, and merge the results in a reference manager that removes duplicates.
Which Indian management journals should I read?
Examples include Vikalpa, IIMB Management Review and the Journal of Indian Business Research. Check each against a quality list and your guide before relying on it.
How many sources should a commerce dissertation review?
Your university guideline and approved dissertations in your department set the practical range. Match their scale, and prioritise relevance and quality over count.