Lecture Four

Literature Review

University of Professional Studies

School of Research and Graduate Studies
 Outline of Presentation
 Introduction
 Definition
 Forms of Literature Review
 Reasons for conducting Literature Review
 Literature Review Process
 Structure of Literature Review
 Presentation of Literature Review
 Evaluating the content of literature review

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 Introduction
To quote the words of Jankowicz (2005, p. 161):
“…the work that you do is not done in a vacuum, but builds on the
ideas of other people who have studied the field before you. This
requires you to describe what has been published, and to marshal
the information in a relevant and critical way”

Whatever the objective(s) of a research may be, its significance is

invariably judged in relation to other peoples research and
findings.

Therefore, one really needs to demonstrate awareness of the

current state of knowledge in the chosen area of research and show
how his/her research fits into the wider context (Gill and Johnson,
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2002). This can be achieved through a literature review.
 What is Literature Review?
A literature review is a part of the research report
where the researcher analyzes and discusses
published/scholarly information relating to the subject
area under research.

A literature review surveys scholarly articles, books and

other sources (e.g. dissertations, conference proceedings)
relevant to a particular issue, area of research, or theory
by providing a description, summary, and critical
evaluation of each work.

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 What is Literature Review Cont’d
It is a critical and evaluative account of what has been
published on a chosen research topic.
Its purpose is to summarise, synthesise and analyse the
arguments of others.
You should describe and analyse the knowledge that
exists and what gaps occur in research related to your field of
interest. (This should clarify the relationship between your
own research and the work that has previously been done.)
It should reveal similarities and differences, consistencies
and inconsistencies and controversies in previous research.

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 What Literature Review is not
It is not primarily an argument for the importance of what it is
you are researching. While it is necessary to explain what is the
primary purpose of your research, the reader of a literature
review will assume that the need for undertaking the research
has already been established.

It is not a descriptive list of papers or summaries. You must not

just list your sources and describe them in detail one at a time.

A literature review is organised around ideas, not the sources

themselves as an annotated bibliography would be organised.
You should assess previous studies and discuss their strengths
and weaknesses.

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 Forms of Literature Review
Two forms of literature review are usually conducted for
different reasons (Sharp et al, 2002)
1. The preliminary review which helps the researcher to
generate and refine research ideas. This review usually
does not form part of the research project proper
2. The critical review, which forms part of the research
project, helps the researcher

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 The Purpose of the Critical Literature
Review
Reviewing the literature critically provides the foundation
on which a research is built.

The precise purpose of reviewing the literature will

depend on the approach used in the research.

1. Deductive approach: The literature is used to identify

the theories and ideas that will be tested using data

2. Inductive approach: the literature review helps you

relate your findings to existing knowledge.
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 Reasons for conducting Literature
Review
Literature review may be conducted for a number of reasons.
These include:
1. Literature review offers an overview of significant
literature published on a topic
2. To help you refine further your research questions and
objectives
3. To highlight research possibilities that have been
overlooked implicitly in research to date. That it helps to
identify knowledge gaps
4. To discover explicit recommendation for further research.
These can provide you with an excellent justification for
your own research questions and objectives

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 Reasons for conducting Literature
Review Cont’d
5. To help avoid simply repeating work that has
been done already
6. To sample current opinions in newspapers,
professional and trade journals, thereby gaining
insights into the aspects of your research
questions and objectives that are considered
newsworthy
7. To discover and provide an insight into research
approaches, strategies and techniques that may
be appropriate to your own research questions
and objectives

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 Literature Review Process
The process can be likened to an upward spiral culminating into the
final draft of a written critical review. The processes are:
 State the research problem/questions and objectives
 Define the parameters for your search
 Generate and refine key words for the search
 Conduct literature search
 Obtain literature
 Evaluate the literature: determine which literature makes a
significant contribution to the understanding of your work
 Record the relevant literature
 Start drafting the literature review: this should involve
description, analysis and synthesis
The process may be repeated a number of time to come out with a
critical review report
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 Conducting the Literature Review
Literature reviews should comprise the following elements:
 An overview of the subject, issue or theory under
consideration, along with the objectives of the literature
review
 Division of works under review into categories (e.g. those in
support of a particular position, those against, and those
offering alternative theses entirely)
 Explanation of how each work is similar to and how it varies
from the others
 Conclusions as to which pieces are best considered in their
argument, are most convincing of their opinions, and make
the greatest contribution to the understanding and
development of their area of research
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 The Content of Critical Literature
Review
The content of the critical literature review need:

1. To include the key academic theories within

your chosen area of research
2. To include relevant empirical research
conducted on the chosen area
3. To demonstrate your knowledge of your
chosen area is up to date
4. Show clear referencing which will enable
those reading your project report to find the
original publications you cite

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 Evaluating the Content of Critical
Literature Review
Ask if you have:
 shown how your research question relates to previous research
reviewed
 assessed the strengths and weaknesses of the previous research
reviewed
 been objective in your discussion and assessment of other
people’s research
 included references that is counter to your our opinion
 made reasoned judgements about the value and relevance of
others’ research to your own
 highlighted those areas where new research (yours!) is needed to
provide fresh insights and taken into account in your arguments.
 justified clearly your own ideas
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 The Structure of the Critical Review
Three common structures are identified. The literature review
can be written in:
1. A single chapter
2. A series of chapters
3. Throughout the project report as you tackle various
issues
For dissertation, adopt a single chapter approach with the
following components:
1. Introduction
2. Theoretical and
3. Empirical
15 4. Concepts, Constructs and Operational definitions
 Conducting Theoretical Review
Theoretical literature refers to the various theories or
abstractions expressing the ideas and concepts on a subject
matter.
To conduct a theoretical literature review:
Identify the key themes
Identify your variables of interest if any
Identify and discuss the theories bordering on the variables
Synthesize and evaluate these theories with respect to your
hypothesis or proposition, or thesis or research question

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 Conducting Theoretical Review
Cont’d
 Create a mind-map of the theories to write about

 Convert the mind-map into a story-board or an

outline

 Get the necessary information and synthesize and

evaluate under each sub-theme or theory.

 Relate these to your hypothesis or proposition or

research question.

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 Sources of Information for
Theoretical Literature Review
Text Books
Book Reviews
Peer reviewed Journals
Accredited scholarly publications
Web (scholarly search engines)

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 Empirical Literature Review
After the theoretical literature look for published
scholarly research evidence in respect of the key
theories in your work.

Discuss whether they support your hypothesis or counter

your hypothesis or emergent views and arguments.

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 Concepts and Constructs
A Concept is a generally accepted collection of
meanings or characteristics associated with certain
phenomenon, events, objects, conditions, situations or
behaviors.

 Eg. Employee performance, customer satisfaction,

quality, strategic management, strategic leadership.
A Construct is an image or idea specifically invented
for a given research and or theory building purpose.

E.g. Job Satisfaction: Job satisfaction is defined as "the

extent to which people like (satisfaction) or dislike
20 (dissatisfaction) their jobs" (Spector, 1997, p. 2
 Operational Definition
An operational definition is a definition stated in terms specific
testing or measurement criteria.

These terms must have empirical referents that we must be able

to count or in some other way gather information through.

The definition must specify the characteristic and how they are
to be observed.

The specifications and characteristics must be so clear that any

one using it will classify the objects the same way
E.g. “…..and Job Satisfaction will be measured by or
operationalized by ……..”

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 Presentation of the Literature Review
Three different approaches can be adopted if there are no
institutional regulation or requirement. These are:
1.Chronological: present the information according to when
they were published [from the most recent to the earliest or
vice versa]
2.Thematic: information is organized along topic(s) or
issue(s), rather than the progression of time. However,
progression of time may still be an important factor in a
thematic review.
3.Methodological: presentation focuses on the "methods" or
“strategies” the researchers or writer used

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 Planning your Literature Search
Strategy
The planning should include:

The parameters of your search

 The key words and search terms you intend to use
The databases and search engines you intend to use
The criteria you intend to use to select the relevant and
useful studies from all the items you find

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 Defining the Parameters of your
search
You need to be clear on the following:
 Language of publication
 Subject area
 Business sector
 Geographical area
 Publication period
 Literature type

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 Generating your Key words
Could use one or a number of different techniques in
combination:
 Discussion with colleagues, your project tutor and
handbook
 Initial reading
 Dictionaries, thesauruses, encyclopedias and handbook
 Mind mapping
 Brainstorming
 Relevance tree

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 Conducting your literature search
The literature search could be conducted using a
variety of approaches:
 Tertiary literature sources
 Literature referenced in books and journals
 Scanning and browsing secondary literature in
your library
 Searching using the internet

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 Sources of Information
1. Untested opinion
2. Self-evident truth
3. Authoritative source (documents from authoritative
sources)
4. Literary works
5. Scientific method
6. postulations

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 Sources of Literature
Primary Secondary Tertiary
 Reports  Books  Indexes
 Theses  Journals  Abstracts
 E-mail, Memos,  Newspapers  Catalogues
minutes  Encyclopedia
 Some government
 Conference proceedings Publications  Dictionaries
 Company reports  Bibliographies
 Unpublished  Citation Indexes
manuscript sources
 Some government
publications such as
white paper etc.

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 Evaluating the Literature
Evaluating the literature gathered involves defining the scope of your review and
assessing the value of the items that you have obtained in helping you to answer your
research questions. Ask yourself the following questions:
 Relevance
 How recent is the item?
 Is the item likely to have been superseded?
 Are the research questions or objectives sufficiently close to your own to make it
relevant to your own research?
 Is the context sufficiently different to make it marginal to your research questions
and objectives?
 Have you seen references to this item (or its authors) in other items that were useful?
 Does the item support or contradict your arguments?

 Value
 Does the item appear to be biased?
 What are the methodological omissions within the work?
 Is the precision sufficient?
 Does the item provide guidance for future research?
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 Thank You

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