essay

Lectures 3 and 4 Writing a literature review

Prof. Cecilia Simkievich

BRM Research Methods

Overview �  Introduction �  What is a literature review? �  What are the purposes of a literature review? �  Sources of information �  Types of literature review �  Steps of a literature review �  Exercise and discussion �  Chapter 2 – Easterby-Smith, M., Thorpe, R. & Jackson, P.(2015)

Management & Business Research (5th ed.), London: Sage.

Introduction •  The review of literature is one of the most important steps in the

research process. •  The main purpose of a literature review is to document the

knowledge and ideas that have been already established on a particular field.

•  The literature review is a laborious task, but it is essential if the research process is to be successful.

What is a literature review? •  A literature review is an analytical summary of an existing body of

research in the light of a particular research topic. In a literature review, researchers describe, critically evaluate, and clarify what is already known about a subject area.

•  “The selection of available documents (both published and unpublished) on the topic, which contain information, ideas, data and evidence written from a particular standpoint to fulfill certain aims or express certain views on the nature of the topic and how it is to be investigated, and the effective evaluation of these documents in relation to the research being proposed”. (Hart, 1998)

What are the purposes of a literature review? •  The literature review allows the reader to be updated with the state

of research in a field and any contradictions that may exist with findings of other research studies.

•  The literature review allows the researcher to identify a research

problem or refine the research question, to determine any gaps or inconsistencies in a body of knowledge, and to discover unanswered questions about subjects, concepts or problems.

Sources of information •  What is considered to be an appropriate source for a literature review

depends on the aim and topic of the review, and also on the traditions of the discipline.

•  There are two main sources of information: - Academic Peer-reviewed journal articles Academic books Working papers and theses Academic Websites, Research Blogs - Non-academic (grey literature) Publications and websites by governmental and non-governmental bodies Professional associations and expert groups often run their own websites, newsletters, and online forums

Sources of information: how to tell if they are reliable?

Criteria for evaluation sources of information

Types of literature review •  A traditional literature review summarizes a body of literature and

draws conclusions about the topic in question. Usually, this type of review is defined by what the reviewer considers to be the most interesting or most relevant. While they discuss a bounded area of research, they might leave out debates or issues that the reviewer considers less relevant. For most traditional reviews, the criteria for the selection and evaluation of literature remains implicit.

Types of literature review

•  A systematic literature review strives to ‘comprehensively identify, appraise and synthesize all relevant studies on a given topic’ (Petticrew and Roberts, 2006). It requires reviewers to provide explicit and rigorous criteria for identifying, including, evaluating and synthesizing their material. Each filtering decision is noted down in order to ensure that articles are not selected on the basis of personal preference. Typically, systematic reviews consider peer-reviewed academic articles only.

Steps of a literature review •  Conducting a literature review requires a broad range of academic

skills. First, researchers need to develop appropriate skills in information-seeking, which allow them to identify and access relevant sources of information. Second, researchers need to develop critical-appraisal skills and writing skills.

Steps of a literature review •  It can be useful to structure the review process in steps: Step 1. The topic, scope and aim of the literature review have to be established. Step 2. Literature needs to be found, recorded and evaluated. Step 3. The reviewed literature needs to be summarized and organized around different themes. Step 4. Writing the literature review.

Steps of a literature review - Step 1 Choosing a topic •  The topic of a literature review arises from the main theme or

research question of a given research project. Once the topic is clear, there are numerous ways in which a literature search can be done – but it should always follow the aim of the research.

Steps of a literature review - Step 1 Choosing a topic •  It can be very helpful to start a literature review with a brief written

research statement covering the following questions: -  What is the topic of my research? -  Why is this topic relevant, important or interesting? -  How does this project relate to past research in this field? -  What are the main concepts and theories that could be relevant? -  What is the aim of the literature review, and how does it relate to the

aim of my research? -  What could be an appropriate working title for this review?

Steps of a literature review – Step 1 Identifying keywords •  Once the topic is established and your research statement written

down, the next step is to identify keywords from a wide range of sources:

-  Financial Times -  UNCTAD’s World Investments Report (WIR) -  Academic articles (most of them carry keywords beneath their

abstracts) -  your own research statement! •  It is useful to note down concepts and their relationships, creating a

sort of mind-map or Venn diagram. This way, researchers can come up with additional keywords or different labels for the same concepts.

Steps of a literature review – Step 1 Example of a Venn Diagram of keywords

Steps of a literature review – Step 1 Example of a mind map of a literature review

Steps of a literature review – Step 2 Finding relevant literature • As we previously said, there are two types of sources of information: academic and non-academic. Both of them can be found in printed or electronic format. • For hundreds of years, the most obvious place to begin a literature search was the library. Today, this seems to be an outdated approach, given the vast amount of information that can be accessed via the Internet. However, this information age leaves many researchers struggling with ‘information overload’; less experienced researchers in particular are likely to feel overwhelmed by the sheer amount and diversity of resources available to them. A visit to the local university library can help to prevent or overcome such overload ‘problems’.

Steps of a literature review – Step 2 Finding relevant literature •  Whether you are at a library or searching the internet at home, there

is not doubt that electronic search engines are the best way of searching for literature. Search engines can go from library catalogues to online databases.

Steps of a literature review – Step 2 Finding relevant literature •  Today, most researchers conduct their literature searches using

multiple databases. The selection of the ‘right’ databases depends on the topic and the type of review.

•  For example, systematic reviews require databases of peer-reviewed articles. There are two types of scholarly databases for journal articles:

-  Bibliographic databases (e.g. Web of Science and ABI (ProQuest)) simply list search results and often offer a broad range of content.

-  Full-text databases provide direct access to articles but often are more limited in scope (e.g. Business Source Premier).

Steps of a literature review – Step 2 Finding relevant literature •  There are several other databases that focus on specialized fields,

such as: •  International Abstracts of Human Resources •  International Abstracts in Operations Research •  Marketing Information Guide •  Packaging Abstracts, Psychological Abstracts and Training

Abstracts. •  Public Affairs Information Service Bulletin (PAIBS), very useful for

retrieving information on affairs connected with the international public environment.

•  Technology Index, although a bit on the margin of management and business studies, can be very useful.

Steps of a literature review – Step 2 Finding relevant literature •  Different databases produce complementary but also redundant

results. It can be rather time-consuming to integrate several lists with results. This is one of the reasons why Google Scholar has become such a popular search option in the past decade. A quick search in Google Scholar can identify seminal texts across the academic disciplines.

•  Wikipedia is an online database that allow users to add and edit content. As users can change the content of the database, researchers should use their common sense and verify anything they are taking from a Wiki source.

Steps of a literature review – Step 2 Finding relevant literature •  Many researchers publish their most recent work in conference

papers and working papers, which can be accessed online via their own university websites or repositories, such as that of the Social Science Research Network (SSRN).

Steps of a literature review – Step 2 Finding relevant literature •  The majority of online catalogues and literature databases has

advanced search interfaces. •  Advanced search interfaces allow researchers to define where to

search for certain keywords (e.g. in the title, author names, abstract or full-text), and to use result limiters to restrict the output to a specified range of dates (e.g. 2010 to 2014) or publication type (e.g. electronic sources).

Steps of a literature review – Step 2 Finding relevant literature •  In most search operations, Boolean operators should be used to

carefully delineate the scope and depth of search results. •  For example, the operator ‘AND’ narrows down the scope and leads

to more specific results (e.g. articles that contain both ‘innovation AND creativity’); ‘OR’ can be used to cover similar concepts (e.g. ‘organization OR firms’); and ‘NOT’ allows for the exclusion of irrelevant results (‘creativity NOT art’).

Steps of a literature review – Step 2

Steps of a literature review – Step 2 Finding relevant literature •  Another useful way to search for literature is by tracing citations

listed in relevant publications. •  Some bibliographic databases also allow accessing the details of all

publications that have subsequently referred to a given journal article. This is the only indexing method that enables a researcher to search forwards (rather than backwards) in the literature. Citation searching is available within many databases including Web of Science, ScienceDirect and Google Scholar.

Steps of a literature review – Step 2 Finding relevant literature •  An alternative source of information is through networking. When

starting a new research project, it is an excellent strategy to assist to university conferences on your topic, or join subject-specific research communities.

•  The British Academy of Management (BAM) and USA-based Academy of Management (AoM) both have special interest groups or divisions; these cover a range of disciplines and cross- disciplinary topics, hold regular seminars and workshops, and are very welcoming to new researchers.

Steps of a literature review – Step 2 Recording your search and results •  All searches should be noted down in a search record for future

reference. This is not only considered to be ‘good practice’ and a requirement for conducting systematic reviews, it is also very useful as follow-up searches take much less time if you do this.

Steps of a literature review – Step 2

Example of a search record

Steps of a literature review – Step 2 Recording your search and results •  It is also essential to keep track of all the references. Most

universities acquire licenses to a number of reference-management packages such as EndNote, RefWorks, ProCite and Reference Manager, but there is also a wide range of freely available packages, such as Mendeley or Zotero. Most packages allow the import and export of bibliographic data in different formats.

Steps of a literature review – Step 2 Example of an EndNote Reference List

Steps of a literature review – Step 2 Evaluating the literature •  A literature review does not merely summarize an existing body of

research; it also analyses and critically assesses this body of literature with a view to a specific question.

•  The critical evaluation of the literature should start as early as possible, as this helps to identify weaknesses in published research and to pinpoint research gaps.

Steps of a literature review – Step 2 Evaluating the literature •  The first evaluative step is to review whether the initial literature

selection is justified. For this first assessment, we need only to skim through the text, noting its structure and topic.

•  Once the initial decision to include the material is confirmed, it should be established which parts of the text could be useful for the review. A quick read through the abstract, table of contents, introduction and conclusion usually allows the reader to identify relevant sections that should be perused in more detail.

Steps of a literature review – Step 3 Organizing the literature •  A summary record allows the reviewer to identify and record the

contribution of each piece of literature reviewed. Initially, the creation of records may appear to be a waste of time. However, summary records make it easier for the reviewers to compare, analyse and synthesize different studies without losing themselves in the details of each one.

Steps of a literature review – Step 3 Organizing the literature •  The following questions can help to create a useful summary record: -  What is the main topic of the study? -  Why is this topic important for my literature review? -  What are the key findings? -  What is the methodological approach used by the author? -  What are the strengths and weaknesses of this research? -  What are the author’s background and interests?

Steps of a literature review – Step 3

Example of a summary record

Steps of a literature review – Step 4 Writing •  A literature review should not present just a series of summary

records, but should start with a rigorous explanation of what is being reviewed, followed by a critical assessment of the existing knowledge, and finally identifying how the own research will complement/challenge the existing knowledge.

Steps of a literature review – Step 4 Writing •  Like most texts, the review then develops in three stages. •  First, there should be an introduction that states the topic, aim and

scope of the review; shows why the topic is of interest. Second, the actual review commences in the main body of the text, and is usually organized by different themes/sub-topics/methodological approaches. The main body should end up with the identification of key findings. Finally, the conclusion summarizes the review, and identifies flaws and gaps in literature that motivate and justify future research.

Steps of a literature review – Step 4

Sexual harassment has many consequences. Adams, Kottke, & Padgitt (1983) found that some women students said that they avoided taking a class or working with certain professors because of the risk of harassment. They also found that men & women students reacted differently. Their research was conducted through a survey of 1,000 men & women graduate & undergraduate students. Benson & Thomson’s study in social Problem (1982) lists many problems created by sexual harassment. In their excellent book, the Lecherous Professor, Dziech & Weiner (1990) give a long list of difficulties that victims have suffered.

The victims of sexual harassment suffer a range of consequences, from lowered self- esteem & loss of self-confidence to withdrawal from social interaction, changed career goals, & depression (Adams, Kottke, & Padgitt, 1983; Benson & Thomson, 1982; Dziech & Weiner, 1990). For example, Adams, Kottke, & Padgitt (1983) noted that 13% of women students said that they avoided taking a class or working with certain professors because of the risk of harassment.

Examples of reviews: which one do you think it is better written?

Exercise and Discussion Making a Summary Record •  In pairs, read and discuss the article uploaded into Moodle (session

2). •  Following the steps in the slides 34-36, try to come up with a

summary record for this article.

THANK YOU!