Organizational Culture and Strategic Performance

Module 3 Research Project and Systematic Review Lecture

Research Project (Critical Literature Review)

1. Abstract (175 words or less) – separate page

2. Introduction

3. Review Method

4. Key Findings (Main body of paper)

5. Conclusions

6. References (APA formatted bibliography)

7. Appendices (as needed)

• 11-point Times Roman Font – 1 inch margins, APA referencing

• 3000 – 4000 words plus Abstract, Appendices and References

Using 6 selected articles, write a critical literature review on your chosen topic that answers a “Review Question” you pose to the literature. Articles MUST come only from tier A,B or C rated academic journals (see list)

Research Project

Abstract • Summarize your paper in 175 words or less covering:

• Why your topic is important • What did you find out – very high level summary • What are the implications of your findings

Introduction • Introduce your topic and why it is important (expand on your Abstract) using

background information from your articles • Your last 1 or 2 sentences should describe how the remainder of your paper is

organized: Example: “The rest of this paper is organized as follows: first I will review….., then I will ….., finally I will summarize my key conclusions.”

Research Project

Review Method Section 1. State your review question

• You must convert your topic into a question you are asking the academic literature

2. Describe the search and selection strategy you used for choosing your articles • What key words did use? • Which database(s) did you access? • What is the query you used to find the articles? • What filters did you apply? • How did you select the final 6 articles?

3. The final component of your methods section should be a table which includes the following key information about your 6 articles: Article Title, Author, Year Published, Journal, other columns you feel would be helpful to the reader.

Step 1 – State Your Review Question

Turn your topic into a review question that you can ask the literature

• Some topics are straight forward in terms of creating a review question: • Example Topic: “Blue Ocean Strategy” • Possible Questions:

• General: “What do we know about Blue Ocean Strategy?” • More Specific: “What are the known outcomes of Blue Ocean Strategy?”

• Other topics will require more thought • Example Topic: “Does organizational size matter?” • This is already a question – but not yet a good review question.

• There are two issues with this question: • The term “matter” is far too ambiguous – we need to be more specific.

Example: Does organizational size influence business outcomes? • Or More Specific: Does organizational size influence competitive

advantage?

Step 2 – Developing a Search Strategy

1) Turn your review question into key words

Academic databases DO NOT work like Google. You can’t enter a phrase or sentence and hope to get good results. You ONLY want enter KEY words and conjunctions (and / or)

Example: “What do we know about the relationship between compensation and employee behaviour?”

Step 2 – Developing a Search Strategy

1) Turn your review question into key words

Academic databases DO NOT work like Google. You can’t enter a phrase or sentence and hope to get good results. You ONLY want enter KEY words and conjunctions (and / or)

Example: “What do we know about the relationship between compensation and employee behaviour?”

Key Words and Synonyms: Compensation Employee Behaviour Pay Worker Outcomes Salary Job

Role

Critical Words

Step 2 – Develop a Search Strategy

Key Words Compensation Employee Behaviour Pay Worker Outcomes Salary Job

Role

AND AND

Group 1 Group 2 Group 3

What we are saying is that we want to see articles that contain any words from Group 1 AND Group 2 AND Group 3…. ….in other words there has to be at least 1 word from each group or else we are not interested in the articles

What should we search for? Title Only or Title + Abstract + Author Supplied Key Words

TI = Title Only ALL = Title + Abstract + Author Supplied Key Words

Step 2 – Develop a Search Strategy

Group 1 Compensation

Pay

Salary

We need to replace “Group 1” with the actual key words in our query.

What we are really saying is that we are happy as long as the database locates any of the words in group 1. To do this – we need to use “OR”

(Compensation OR Pay OR Salary)

Doing this for all 3 groups: (compensation OR pay OR salary) AND (employee OR worker OR job OR role) AND (behavior OR outcomes)

IF we want to search ONLY article titles – we would place ‘ti’ around our query with brackets: ti((compensation OR pay OR salary) AND (employee OR worker OR job OR role) AND (behavior OR outcomes))

IF we want to search title + abstract + key words - we would place ‘all’ around our query with brackets: all((compensation OR pay OR salary) AND (employee OR worker OR job OR role) AND (behavior OR outcomes))

Problem-Words

ti((compensation OR pay OR salary) AND (employee OR worker OR job OR role) AND (behavior OR outcomes))

What if the author used the word “Salaries” rather than salary?

Or Spelled Behavior as Behaviour

Or used plurals: workers, jobs, roles

Or singulars: outcome

Before you submit your query – replace portions of these problem-words with a wild-cards: *

Examples: salary → salar* behavior → behav* worker → worker*

What if Your Paper Returns More Articles than You Need?

Final Paper Selection: • How will get narrow it down to the 6-10 required?

• Tighten up your query: • remove wild cards • use “TI” rather than “ALL”, • Remove some of the synonyms you are using

• Filter for Quality • Scholarly, peer-reviewed articles only • Only articles from Journals rated A, B or C from the Journal Ranking lists can be

used for this assignment • Filter for Relevance

• Filter for Language (E.g. English) • Review title and abstract for topic relevance • Only theoretical and empirical papers are allowed – not literature reviews. • Change date to more recent articles (last 10 years)

• Are you using the correct key words? Look at the articles that did pop up….do they use different terminology to describe your topic?

• Use “ALL” rather than “TI”

• Do you need more wild cards? - spelling variations, plural, etc.

• Search another database

• Consider snowballing techniques • Review the reference lists of the papers you have already found to find

additional papers that would fit your selection criteria

• Is your research question too narrow?

What if Your Paper Returns Fewer Articles or Irrelevant Articles?

Key Findings Section

• There is no “BEST” way to write-up the main body of your literature review.

• Suggestions: • Read through the example literature review I have provided • Each paper you select will have a shorter Literature Review towards the front of

the article – read them • As you read observe how the authors their writing style and how they weave

evidence from other papers into their paper in the form of citations/references.

• Read through your articles, make notes and decide what your “story is”….the same way a lawyer works his/her way through a court case, providing evidence along the way in a planned sequence…..what do you want to say? What evidence proves it?

Key Findings - Approaches

• Example Review Question: • “What do we know about customer-oriented selling behavior (CSB) in Sales?”

• Based on the Question, You Could Explore: • Definition(s) of CSB, are they consistent in the literature? How is CSB measured in

research – is this consistent? • Outcomes of CSB? (e.g. sales performance, customer satisfaction) • Necessary Conditions for CSB (Antecedents, Determinants) • Theories that explain why CSB influences outcomes • Theories that explain why these conditions are necessary for CSB • Critical evaluation of the papers selected in terms of their arguments / claims /

research limitations, etc. (see next slide)

Necessary Conditions

Outcomes (Positive/Negative?)

Theory (Mechanism)

Theory Mechanism

CSB

Definitions, Conceptualization, Operationalization

Potential Critical Evaluation Questions You Can Explore For each article evaluate the following and decide what is relevant to include in your paper

1) What type of article is this (empirical, theoretical/conceptual)

2) What are the main claims to knowledge being made in this paper?

• What is being argued?

• What are the 3-5 most important claims (hypotheses, propositions) made?

3) How clear are the claims being made?

4) With what degree of certainty are the claims made – are their limitations identified?

5) How generalizable are the claims made? (can the claims be applied to all situations or to

just specific situations?)

6) How consistent are the claims – do the authors conflict /contradict with one another in terms

of their claims, their definitions, etc. ?

7) How transparent are the claims (does the author provide (cite) other evidence to support

their argument?)

8) Is there a range of sources to back-up evidence (multiple reference sources rather than just

one source, or the author’s opinion)

9) Is there theoretical backing to support the author’s claims?

10) Are the authors claims convincing, why? Could they have provided better evidence to

support their claims?

Conclusion

• The conclusion section needs to answer the Review Question initially posed.

• The conclusion – is YOUR POINT OF VIEW. However, you are making an argument you want others to believe by bringing forward evidence from the main body of your paper into your conclusion to support your final argument.

• Think of yourself as a Lawyer – your conclusion is your closing statement as to why your client is not-guilty. It selectively pulls evidence from what has been previously presented to summarize your point of view in a logical and convincing manner.

• Conclusions are poor if you provide no evidence backing your argument or the logic in your argument is unclear or lacking.

Citations

• Citations are weaved throughout your document as evidence/support for any claims you make in your paper. It allows the reader to see that you have back-up and support for the comments you are making, and if you specifically are using a statement/phrase that came directly from someone else.

• I recommend you utilize citation software. You can load your selected papers into it (e.g Mendeley, RefWorks, etc.)

• Links to Microsoft Word – to easily add citations throughout your paper • Bibliography automatically created at the press of a button for all citations used in a

paper. • Its FREE

• There are many library and internet resources explaining how to properly reference/cite in APA. The easiest way is to look at how it is done in the articles you selected.

Some Citation Rules / Examples:

Directly referring to a specific article in your work Moncrief and Anderson (2015) believe that sales performance is a function of salesperson behavior.

Indirectly citing an article as evidence of a claim you are making: Sales performance is a function of salesperson behavior (Moncrief and Anderson, 2015).

Directly Quoting an Author’s Work: “Sales performance is a function of salesperson behavior” (Moncrief and Anderson, 2015 p.12).

3 or more authors in an article: (Moncrief et al.)

For Important Claims or when you indicate multiple sources of evidence – you need multiple references:

• Several scholars believe that……. (Moncrief and Anderson, 2015; Kerr, 2018).