Unit II BUS Discussion Board

BUS 8304, The Doctoral Research Study Journey 1

Course Learning Outcomes for Unit II Upon completion of this unit, students should be able to:

3. Analyze the literature review process necessary to complete the doctoral research study. 3.1 Examine a scholarly article for its fit in a research study. 3.2 Describe how a scholarly article supports a study.

7. Explain how research results can influence business decisions.

7.1 Demonstrate how article findings influence business decision-making.

Course/Unit Learning Outcomes

Learning Activity

3.1, 3.2, 7.1 Unit Lesson Chapter 9 Unit II Literature Review

Required Unit Resources Chapter 9: Reviewing the Literature

Unit Lesson For this unit lesson, we will cover introductory concepts of reviewing the literature. In the next unit, we will extend this lesson and cover more advanced topics of the literature review.

Importance of Reviewing the Literature

(Dudko, n.d.) We all know that the end goal of attending a doctoral program is to earn a doctoral-level degree. The most important deliverable for your degree is the doctoral study or dissertation. Achieving this goal means that you are deemed a subject matter expert (SME) and academic expert in a specific subject area. Realistically, though, you can be a SME without attending a doctoral program. For example, 20 years of practical experience can make you a SME. Optimally, you will choose a firmly grounded topic in an area where you already have a significant amount of subject matter expertise. For example, if you have 20 years of practical

UNIT II STUDY GUIDE

Reviewing Literature

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accounting experience, you are likely a SME in accounting. You may be a comptroller, a chief financial officer (CFO), or an accountant with a Certified Public Accountant (CPA) designation. The expectation is that you would choose a dissertation subject area within the accounting or finance realm. If you have no experience in accounting or finance, then in order to get to the point where you can write a dissertation, you will need to make up that loss of 20 years of practical experience. For example, someone who has spent their life working in information technology (IT) would likely never do a doctoral study/dissertation in marketing or accounting or a similar topic area. When you choose your subject area, choose a subject in which you are interested and are considered a SME regarding that topic. Also, understand that you may have been a chief executive officer (CEO) of a large, successful organization for 20 years. While that makes you a SME in many business areas, it does not mean you have doctoral-level academic subject expertise. Academic expertise is required to write a doctoral study/dissertation, so reading and comprehending large amounts of the current literature is crucial to obtain this goal. Once you are sure of your subject area, you will want to narrow it down to potential topic areas. For some examples, review the chart below.

Subject Area Topic Area

IT Software Development, Security, IT Governance

Accounting Tax, Accounting Ethics, Budgeting, Investing

Marketing Branding, Online Marketing, Mobile Advertising

Organizational Leadership Impact on Performance, Organizational Culture, Motivating Employees

Human Resources Workforce Management, Training, Diversity

These topic areas are still fairly broad, and this is not an exhaustive list. Once you have narrowed to a topic area, you should start pulling peer-reviewed articles based on that topic. Doing so will likely help you narrow your topic even more. Again, reviewing the literature is the foundation of your study. You may have an idea of a business problem to research, but does the literature support that problem? The business problem you are interested in may have already been researched by multiple researchers at different times. How would you know this unless you are exhaustively searching the literature? Another use of articles from your literature review is to justify the decisions you make in your doctoral study/dissertation. Every decision you make must be named, defined, and justified. For example, let’s suppose that you want to use leadership style as a variable in your research question. How do you define leadership style (i.e., democratic versus autocratic versus bureaucratic)? What about the strategic leader versus the coach-style leader? Transformational, transactional, and laissez-faire leadership are a part of the full range of the transformational leadership model, but are they considered actual leadership styles? One way to justify your choice to use transformational, transactional, and laissez-faire leadership as leadership styles is to show where other researchers have done so in the past. As you search the literature, you need a method of categorizing your articles. You could manage your articles based on older methods. For example, you could print each article (or abstract if the article is too long), highlight the critical passages, write procedural notes on the top of the first page, and number the articles. In contrast, you could create an Excel spreadsheet where you enter all of the pertinent information as you read the articles. Regardless of the method, you will want to categorize your articles when writing Chapter 2. You will also want a way to find those articles when you need them quickly. A good filing structure is highly suggested.

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Reviewing an Article When you compare your articles, you will need to fully understand the research methodology, design, and methods used. One suggestion is to specifically note these aspects of the research project. Ask yourself the questions listed below.

• What was the chosen methodology?

• What was the chosen design?

• What was the problem being researched?

• What was the purpose of the study?

• What was the population?

• What was the sample?

• How was the data collected?

• What methods were used to perform the data analysis?

• What were the findings? If you are critically reviewing the article, and you should, you should also ask yourself the questions listed below.

• Were there limitations to the study?

• Are the methodology, design, and methods in alignment?

• Do the findings make sense?

• Are the conclusions and discussion a natural progression from the findings? Finally, you should consider how this article and its contents fit into your overall study. How does it support your study? Does it provide justification for some decision that you have made? Does it support the gap? Is it a component of one of the themes you found and will discuss in your literature review? Does it provide support for your methodology, design, or method choices? Does it provide background information for the theory or model you chose for your theoretical/conceptual framework? Please note that the articles you pull for your literature review should be of high quality. This means that you should be using peer-reviewed, scholarly journal articles. You should limit the number of dissertations; secondary sources, such as magazine articles; online topic websites; and textbooks. You may have to use textbooks to get information for the seminal theory or model you chose for your theoretical/conceptual framework, but again, those sources should be used sparingly. Also, most of your articles should be published within the last 4 years. You want your study and information to be as current as possible. In the next unit lesson, we will take a closer look at the literature review. Some students say that Chapter 2 is one of the hardest proposal chapters to write. It certainly is difficult, so arm yourself with all the tools at your disposal.

Reference Dudko, O. (n.d.). ID 61564791 [Photograph]. Dreamstime. https://www.dreamstime.com/stock-photo-

literature-stack-school-closeup-page-wisdom-image61564791

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Suggested Unit Resources Chapter 4 in your eTextbook offers insight into how to choose and narrow your dissertation topic. Chapter 5 offers insight into the roles of the committee members and best practices for working with your dissertation team. Chapter 4: Choosing a Dissertation Topic Chapter 5: Creating Your Dissertation Team

Learning Activities (Nongraded) Nongraded Learning Activities are provided to aid students in their course of study. You do not have to submit them. If you have questions, contact your instructor for further guidance and information. Consider the three parts of a doctoral study/dissertation team: the student, the chair, and the committee member. In a one-page document, address the prompts below.

• List the responsibilities as a doctoral student.

• List the responsibilities of the chair.

• List the responsibilities of the 2nd committee member. Once you have your lists, compare them, and write a one-paragraph reflection on how you will meet your responsibilities.