Lecture - 3
» Without reviewing the existing literature, a
researcher starts from a dark room, heading
towards badly designed studies that are
poorly carried out and produce findings of
little importance.
» Similarly to policy makers and practitioners,
reviews of the relevant literature will allow
informed choices to be made regarding the
costing, planning and implementation of
proposed interventions.
» The review is therefore a part of your
academic development – of becoming an
expert in the field (Hart, 1998:1).
Two major reasons
a. The preliminary search
This helps researcher to generate and refine
research ideas.
b. The critical review
This is an essential part of research that
requires researchers (1) to demonstrate
his/her awareness of the current state of
knowledge and (2) to show how his/her
research fits in the wider context of research
area.
Major purposes
» To provide foundation to build research on
» To develop a good understanding and insight into relevant
previous research and emerging trends
» To help researcher to identify theories and ideas that
researcher test using data (deductive approach)
» To help researcher to relate his/her ideas and theories
developed through inductive approach
» To help researcher to refer whether his/her research findings
are in line with the available literature or are in contrast to
those
» To identify other research that may be in progress
» To help avoid charges of plagiarism
Continues next page---
Major purposes
Continued from previous page
Gall et al. (1996) highlight the purposes of literature review as:
» To help researcher to refine research question(s) and
objectives;
» To highlight research possibilities that have been overlooked;
» To discover explicit recommendations for further research;
» To provide researcher superb justification for pursuing
specific research questions and objectives;
» To help researcher to avoid simply repeating work that has
already been done;
» To sample current opinion;
» To gain an insight into research approaches, strategies and
techniques.
» To organise valuable ideas and findings
Important aspects (contents)
(to be covered)
» To include the key academic theories within the area
of research chosen;
» To demonstrate that the researchers’ knowledge of
the chosen research area is up to-date;
» To show how this research relates to previous
published research;
» To assess the strength and weaknesses of previous
work , including omissions and bias; and
» To justify arguments by referencing previous
research.
Structure
(to be followed)
» Start at a more general level;
» Provide a brief overview of key ideas;
» Summarize, compare and contrast the work of the key
writers;
» Narrow down to highlight the work most relevant to
this research;
» Provide a detailed account of findings of similar work;
» Highlight those issues where this research will
provide fresh insights; and
» Lead the readers into subsequent sections of this
research which will address such issues.
Literature sources
The literature review process
Planning the literature search
A careful planning of literature search is needed so that
it is ensured to have relevant and up-to-date
literature; this requires to take the following steps.
a. Define the parameters of the research, which are:
a. Language of publication (for example English)
b. Subject area (for example accountancy)
c. Business sector (for example manufacturing)
d. Geographical area (for example Asia)
e. Publication period (for example the last 10 years)
f. Literature type (for example refereed journals)
Continues next slide
Planning the literature search
Continued from previous slide
b. Generate key words and search terms
i. Key words or search terms help describe research
question(s) and objectives
ii. Using ‘Relevance Tree’ can prove a good tool in
generating key words; a worked example for
generating key words through ‘Relevance Tree’ is
provided in ‘Additional Reading Materials’ on page
13)
iii. Key words are used to search the tertiary literature
c. Discuss ideas as widely as possible
Conducting the literature search
Conducting literature search may involve
a variety of approaches, namely:
• Searching using tertiary literature
sources;
• Table 3.2 entitled “Tertiary literature
sources and their coverage” is
available at pp.14-15 of ‘Additional
Reading Materials’.
• Continues next slide
Conducting the literature search
• Obtaining relevant literature referenced in
books and journals already studies;
• Scanning and browsing secondary literature
available in the libraries;
• Table 3.4 entitled “Selected publishers’ and
bookshops’ Internet addresses” is available
at p.16 of ‘Additional Reading Materials’.
• Searching using Internet.
• See next slide and pp. 17-18 of ‘Additional
Reading Materials’.
Planning and conducting literature search–3: searching the Internet
Obtaining and evaluating the
literature
» Define the scope of your review
» Assess relevance and value
» Assess sufficiency
Recording the literature
Make notes for each item you read
Record the following
» Bibliographic details
See details in Table 3.6 available at p. 19 of ‘Additional
Reading Materials’. Check also Appendix 2 entitled
“Systems of referencing” available at pp. 20-26.
» Brief summary of content
(covered in slide 4 & 5)
» Supplementary information
See details in Table 3.7 available at p. 19 of ‘Additional
Reading Materials’.
Referencing the references
Examples
In text:
Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill (2009)
In references (or bibliography)
Saunders, M.N.K, Lewis, P. and Thornhill, A. (2009)
Research Methods for Business Students (5th edn),
Prentice Hall
Basically, any approach that works for
YOU is appropriate; one possible
procedure follows
1. Arrange your notes in a logical order. If you
are having difficulty seeing an order, look for
clues in the sequence of your ideas or try
concept mapping the topic.
2. Identify the main ideas - sorting your notes
to fit under the headings.
» Develop a table of contents, that can then
be fleshed out with descriptive bullet-points
(annotated table of contents). By
subjecting an annotated table of contents
(or outline) to review, a novice researcher
can receive a self leading advice on
contents and structure of the planned
literature review.
» Example follows………(next slde)
» Example: a step-by-step, hierarchical list of
the points you plan to cover, e.g.,
1st main idea
•1st supporting point
evidence, argument, or example
evidence, argument, or example
evidence, argument, or example
•2nd supporting point
evidence, argument, or example
evidence, argument, or example
evidence, argument, or example
2nd main idea, etc……
» Try to avoid long lists of supporting points;
combine into related ideas.
» If you can't decide where to put something,
put it in two or more places in the outline.
» As you write, you can decide which place is
the most appropriate.
» Now you are ready to write your review.
» Introduce the topic and give a brief
statement of the ‘main ideas’.
» Write some plausible synthesis or analysis for
these ideas using headings according to the step-
by-step hierarchical list and guide the reader
through the material.
» If the literature review is part of a research project,
stop at the end of each topic, to mention the main
relevant ideas and how they fit together relating to
your research.
» Leave it, then reread, edit and revise what you have
written, to make sure that it makes sense and
'flows' in a way that the reader will understand
what you are tying to convey.
Chronological order
By publication date
By trend
Thematic order
A structure which considers different
themes
Methodological order
Focuses on the methods/methodology
adopted, e.g., qualitative versus
quantitative approaches
23
Four common forms
» Stealing material from another source
» Submitting material written by another
» Copying material without quotation marks
» Paraphrasing material without
documentation
Adapted from Park (2003), cited in Easterby-Smith et al. (2008)
Use of an already generated data file “TEACH.SAV”
• An introduction of “Teach.Sav” data file is provided in “Additional
Reading Materials” pages 55 – 63. This data file consists of data
about 347 people recruited to work for a UK firm; we will use data
contained in this file for various SPSS exercises.
• Let’s Upload the file’, taking the following steps.
i. Open SPSS
ii. Click ‘File…Open…Data’.
iii. Locate data file ‘Teach.Sav’ file on Instructor’s
directory on D:\.........................\CHISHTI drive.
iv. Open “Teach.Sav” by double-clicking on it.
v. Study the data provided and its nature/check how
variables have been coded (in Variable View).
