How to use Corporate Critic
Corporate Critic is designed to be easily explored for information without
specialist knowledge. Many search result lines - such as company names - are
live links which change colour when your mouse hovers over them.
Clicking on these links will help you to discover more information about that company or
subject. Elsewhere 'tick boxes' allow users to view selected data.
Like Google, a search should return the most relevant information first. Also
like Google, putting search terms with more than one word in inverted commas
will search for just this phrase. Searching for parts of words will return whole
words.
So if you are unsure of the spelling of a word it may be worth
using part of a word. For example, a search for 'Nestl' returns more Nestle
companies than a search for 'Nestle'. We abbreviate company names without full
stops (BP and not B.P) and use '&' instead of 'and' (Procter & Gamble).
No companies found?
If you can find no information on a particular company and have tried typing the
company name into the stories search too, it is likely that we hold no data on
the company in question. This means that its ethical rating is likely to be OK,
but may be worth further research (see Research
and Ratings).
Search results pages have blue up/down arrows at the top of each column. Stories
are normally displayed in date order with the most recent first. Companies are
normally displayed alphabetically. However, clicking on the blue up or down
arrows allows you to sort the search results by the contents of different columns.
At present Corporate Critic will log you out if it detects 20 minutes of inactivity.
Using the Home button on the top menu bar takes you back to the Subscriber Login Page to re-enter your details.
Quick Searches
Once you have logged in to the Subscriber Home Page, a 'Search for:' box on the
right of the page allows you to type in the name of a company or a subject area.
Companies
If the database contains information on the company you have entered, the search
results page lists all the companies matching your search criteria with details
(where available) on:
Clicking on a company name (or company name in the ownership column) will take
you to a
Company Information page. It should be noted that, because
the database rates company groups, clicking on a subsidiary company at this stage
will take you to the Company Information page for its parent.
Company Information page
This page contains details such as address and market information where available,
and a link to a complete listing of all the stories relating to the company group
you have selected. Clicking on this link takes you straight to a Company
Stories page. Below this basic company information appears an active list
of Category Scores summarising the areas in which the database
holds information for this company.
Next to each Category Name is a 'Table Score' which is a quick
visual indicator of the seriousness of a criticism or collection of criticisms.
A 'Whole Circle' indicates a more serious criticism and a 'Quarter' the least significant criticism (Half Circle and Three Quarters sit between these two). More information on the Circle ratings appears in the discussion of Categories. Clicking on 'View Stories' takes you to a Company Stories page.
It should be noted that 'View Stories' will only show 'scoring stories' (i.e.
stories reported in the last five years). 'Stories - A Complete Listing...' will
show all stories - potentially going back to 1991.
Company Stories page
Each line summarises the stories for a company or within a category. Each line
shows for each story:
| Date |
Ownership |
Company |
Category |
Story summary |
Tick box to view abstracts |
Selecting the stories required and pressing the View Abstracts button takes
the user to a...
View Abstracts page
This page provides the detailed information on which rating decisions were made.
Each story will have a
Primary Reference containing an abstract
from a named and dated publication explaining a rating decision or summarising
an incident, listing or criticism. Where more than one abstract exists referring
to the same incident (such as a pollution event) or type of report (environmental
report), they will be grouped together under the same story. The Primary Reference
is usually the most recent or detailed criticism. Other abstracts will be called
simply
Reference or in some cases
Historic Reference,
Negating
Reference or
Corporate Response.
Each abstracts page only displays ten stories. To view the next ten abstracts,
use the back button on your browser to return to the search results page. Click
on 'next 10' from above the View Abstracts button.
Stories
The stories search looks in the text of all the abstracts in the database and
is intended to be used to search subject areas such as Senegal or Landmines.
Search for Stories
If the database contains information on the subject you have entered it will
return a list of stories under the following headings:
Date Ownership Company Category Story summary Tick box to view abstracts
Selecting the stories required and pressing the View Abstracts button takes
the user to a
View Abstracts page.
Advanced Searches
Choosing
Find Companies from the menu on the left of the screen
on the Subscriber Home page takes you to a '
Search for Companies' page.
Below the
Search Terms box is an arrow: 'show advanced search options'. Clicking
on this phrase brings up three boxes headed:
| ALL MARKETS |
ANY TURNOVER |
ALL CATEGORIES |
Scrolling down these boxes and clicking on an area of specific interest allows
you to narrow searches to these areas only. It is not necessary to enter any
terms in the Search Terms box for a search selected within these boxes to work.
It is therefore possible to search for such things as
all the companies with
turnovers of more than £100m with criticisms under the Nuclear Power category.
Choosing
Find Stories from the menu on the left of the screen
on the Subscriber Home page takes you to a 'Search for Stories' page.
Below the Search Terms box is an arrow: 'show advanced search options'. Clicking
on this phrase brings up three boxes headed:
| ALL CATEGORIES |
ALL MARKETS |
ALL YEARS |
Scrolling down these boxes and clicking on an area of specific interest allows
you to narrow searches to these area only. It is not necessary to enter any
terms in the Search Terms box for a search selected within these boxes to work.
It is therefore possible to search for such things as all the Irresponsible
Marketing stories which took place in 2004.
Browsing Markets
Choosing
Browse Markets from the menu on the left of the screen
on the Subscriber Home page takes you to a 'Markets and Sectors' page.
Clicking on a market will take you to the page for that market which shows
whether there are further sub sectors which may be selected. Below these sub
sectors, the first ten companies (alphabetically by name) in this sector will
be displayed under the following headings:
| Company |
Ownership |
Turnover |
Ethiscore |
Portfolio |
Clicking on the ethiscore heading (down arrow - sort by ethiscore descending)
will display the best scoring companies on the database in that sector. The
ethiscore can be amended to reflect specific organisational priorities by selecting
Modify Ethiscore.
Where there is a detailed scores table comparing all the companies on all the
issues there will be a link 'View Detailed Scores Table...' which appears below
the sub sector listings.
Customise Scores
Choosing
Customise Scores from the menu on the left of the screen
on the Subscriber Home page takes you to a 'Category Weighting' page. You can
see more detail about how each Category is scored by clicking on its name in the
Category column. In the 'Your Weighting' column, you can choose to give each category one of the following weightings:
If you only want to take environmental issues into
account for example, you just need to tick in the ignore column for all the
other categories. It is necessary to click on the Save Weightings button when
the selection is complete for subsequent ethiscores to be altered by this weighting.
Modified ethiscores will appear in the Company Information pages and in the Market
Sectors pages but not on the Detailed Scores Tables.
Portfolios
Choosing
Portfolios from the menu on the left of the screen on
the Subscriber Home page takes you to the 'Portfolios' page.
Standard subscribers and daily access customers may view existing Corporate Critic
portfolios. At present this only includes the FTSE100. Clicking on FTSE100 displays
the FTSE100 page and a listing of companies under the following headings:
| Company |
Ownership |
Turnover |
Ethiscore |
Clicking on the column heading permits the search to be ordered by this heading.
There is also a link to 'View Detailed Scores Table...' on this page. This table
permits comparison across all the categories.
Portfolios for Premium customers
Portfolios are also a feature for Premium customers, enabling them to group
together companies they want to observe in detail and watch on an ongoing basis.
New portfolios can be created from the Portfolios page. Choose Create New Portfolio and give the portfolio a name (and optional description) of your choice then press Create. Companies may now be
added to this portfolio from the following pages:
Company Search Results Page
Market Sectors Page
In the Search Results or Market Sectors pages, use the drop down arrow in the Add to Portfolio box next to the company of your choice to locate and click on the portfolio you have named.
Premium customers may also choose an '
email me' function if there
are rating changes for companies in their 'my portfolio' option - to help them
keep track of company performance on an ongoing basis. To find the email me updates check box, go the the portfolios page and click on your portfolio. Then choose View Detailed Scores Table, where the 'Email me if the scores in this table change...' check box will appear.
To remove a company from your portfolio, go the the portfolios page and click on your portfolio. Click on the Remove button next to the company you wish to remove.
Your Account
Choosing
Your Account from the menu on the left of the screen
on the Subscriber Home page takes you to the 'Your Account' page. This allows
you to change your password or contact details. It also permits you to extend
your subscription.