DOC-20180518-WA0030.ppt

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Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill, Research Methods for Business Students, 5th Edition, © Mark Saunders, Philip Lewis and Adrian Thornhill 2009
CRITICALLY REVIEWING THE LITERATURE

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LEARNING OUTCOMES
Understand the importance and purpose of the critical
literature review to your research project;
To be able to adopt a critical perspective in your
reading;
Know what you need to include when writing your
critical review;
Be aware of the range of primary, secondary and
tertiary literature sources available;
Be able to identify key words and to undertake a
literature search using a range of methods;

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LEARNING OUTCOMES
Be able to evaluate the relevance, value and
sufficiency of the literature found;
Be able to reference the literature found
accurately;
Understand what is meant by plagiarism;
Be able to apply the knowledge, skills and
understanding gained to your own research
project.

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REASONS FOR REVIEWING THE
LITERATURE
To conduct a ‘preliminary’ search of existing
material
To organise valuable ideas and findings
To identify other research that may be in
progress
To generate research ideas
To develop a critical perspective

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THE LITERATURE REVIEW PROCESS
Source: Saunders et al. (2003)
Figure 3.1 The literature review process

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THE CRITICAL REVIEW (1)
Approaches used
Deductive -
Develops a conceptual framework from the
literature which is then tested using the data
Inductive -
Explores the data to develop theories which are
then tested against the literature

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THE CRITICAL REVIEW (2)
Key purposes
To further refine research questions and objectives
To discover recommendations for further research
To avoid repeating work already undertaken
To provide insights into strategies and techniques
appropriate to your research objectives
Based on Gall et al. (2006)

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ADOPTING A CRITICAL PERSPECTIVE
(1)
Skills for effective reading
Previewing which is looking around the text before you start
reading in order to establish precisely its purpose and how it
may inform you literature search
Annotating that is conducting a dialogue with yourself, the
author and the issues and the ideas at stake
Summarising the best way to determine that you’ve really got the
point is to be able to state it in your words. Outlining the
argument of text is a version of annotating, and can be done
quite informally in the margins of the text
Comparing and contrasting: ask your self how you thinking has
been altered by this reading or how has it affected your
response to the issue and themes your research
Harvard College Library (2006)

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(2)
The most important skills are
The capacity to evaluate what you read
The capacity to relate what you read to other
information
Wallace and Wray (2006)

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(3)
Questions to ask yourself
Why am I reading this?
What is the author trying to do in writing this?
How convincing is this?
What use can I make of this reading?
Adapted from Wallace and Wray (2006)

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CONTENT OF THE CRITICAL REVIEW
You will need to
Include key academic theories
Demonstrate current knowledge of the area
Use clear referencing for the reader to find the
original cited publications
Acknowledge the research of others

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STRUCTURE OF THE LITERATURE
REVIEW
Three common structures
A single chapter
A series of chapters
Throughout the report

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THE KEY TO A CRITICAL LITERATURE
REVIEW
Demonstrate that you have read, understood
and evaluated your material
Link the different ideas to form a cohesive and
coherent argument
Make clear connections to your research
objectives and the subsequent empirical
material
Saunders et al. (2009)

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CATEGORIES OF LITERATURE
SOURCES
Primary (published and unpublished)
Secondary
Tertiary
Detailed in Tables 3.1 and 3.2 Saunders et al. (2009)

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LITERATURE SOURCES AVAILABLE
Literature sources available
Figure 3.2 Literature sources available

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JOURNALS
Journals are also known as ‘periodical’ ‘serials’ and ‘magazines’ and are
published on a regular basis. Journals are a vital literature source for
any research. They are well covered by tertiary literature, and good
selection can be accessed from most university libraries (printed or
online)

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REFEREED ACADEMIC JOURNALS
Articles in refereed academic journals (such as
Journal of management studies)are evaluated by
peers academic prior to publication, to assess their
quality and suitability, they are usually written by
experts in the field. There will be usually be detailed
footnotes, an extensive bibliography , rigorous
attention to detail and verification of information.
Such articles are written for a more narrow audience of
scholars with a particular interest in the field. The
language used may be technical or highly
specialized as a prior knowledge of the topic will be
assumed.

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PROFESSIONAL JOURNALS
Professional Journals (such as People Management) they are produced for
their members by organization such as the chartered Institute of
personal and development (CIPD). They contain a mix of news related
items and articles that are more detailed. However you have to exercise
caution

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TRADE JOURNALS
They fulfill a similar function to professional
journals. They are published by trade
organizations or aimed at particular
industries or trades such as carting or
mining. Often they focus in new products or
services and news items, they rarely
contain articles based on empirical
research, although some provide
summaries of research, You should
therefore use these with consideration
caution for you research project.

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BOOKS
Books and monographs are written for specific
audiences. Some are aimed at the academic, with a
theoretical slant. Others, aimed at practicing
professionals, may be more applied in their content.
The material in books is usually presented in a more
ordered and accessible manner than in journals,
polling together a wider range of topics, they are
therefore, practically useful as introductory sources
to help clarify your research question(s) and
objectives or research methods you intend to use.
Some academic textbooks such as this one are now
supported by web pages providing additional
information.

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NEWSPAPER
Newspaper are good source of topical events,
developments within business and government, as
well as recent statistical information such as share
prices, they also sometimes review recent research
report.
Again you should be carful when you use newspaper
in your research project as newspaper may contain
bias in their coverage, be it political geographical or
personal.
Reporting can also be inaccurate and you may not
pick up any subsequent amendments

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REPORTS
Reports include market research reports such as those produced by Mintel
and keynote government reports and academic reports. It is not easy to
get access for these reports as they are not as widely available as
books. It is important to try to assess the authority of the author, and to
beware of personal bias

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CONFERENCE PROCEEDINGS
Conference proceedings sometimes referred to as symposia, as often
published as unique titles within journals or as books. Most
conferences have a theme that is very specific, but some have a wide-
range overview. Many conferences have associated web pages
providing abstract and occasionally the full papers presented at the
conference .

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THESES
Theses are unique and so far a major research project can be a good
source of further references. Unfortunately, they can be difficult to
locate and, when found, difficult to access as there may be only one
copy at the awarding institution.

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PLANNING YOUR SEARCH STRATEGY
All our students have found their literature search
a time consuming process, which take far
longer than expected. Fortunately, time spent
planning will be rapid in time saved when
searching the literature. As you start to plan
your search, you need to beware of information
overload!
One of the easiest ways to avoid this is to start the
main search for your critical review with a
clearly defined research question (s), objectives
and outline proposal.

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THE LITERATURE SEARCH
STRATEGY (1)
Write down
parameters of your search
key words and search terms to be used
databases and search engines to be used
criteria for selection of relevant and useful
studies
And
Discuss these with a teacher (if possible)

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THE LITERATURE SEARCH STRATEGY
(2)
Define the research parameters
Generate key words
Discuss your research
Brainstorm ideas
Construct Relevance trees - use computer
software

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DEFINING THE PARAMETERS OF YOUR SEARCH
For most research questions and objectives you will
have a good idea of which subject matter is going to
be relevant. You will, however, be less clear about the
parameters within which you need to search. In
particular, you need to be clear about the following
(Bell 2005):
Language of publication (e.g. English);
Subject area (e.g. accountancy);
Business sector (e.g. manufacturing);
Geographical area (e.g. Europe);
Publication period (e.g. the last 10 years);
Literature type (e.g. refereed journals and books).

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GENERATING YOUR KEYWORDS
It is important at this stage to read both articles by
key authors and recent review articles in area of
your research .This will help you to define your
subject matter and to suggest appropriate key
words. Recent review articles in your research
area are often helpful here as they discuss the
current state of research for a particular topic and
can help you to refine your keywords. In addition
,they will probably contain reference s to other
work that is pertinent to your research
question(s) and objectives.(Box 3.8) If you are
unsure about review articles ,your project tutor
should be able to point you in the right direction.
Another potentially useful source of references
is dissertations and theses in your university's

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GENERATING YOUR KEYWORDS
After re-reading your lecture notes and textbooks and
undertaking this limited reading you will have a list of
subjects that appear relevant to your research project.
You now need to define precisely what is relevant to
your research in terms of key words. The
identification of keywords or ‘research 'terms is the
most important part of planning your search for
relevant literature (Bell 2005). Key words are the basic
terms that describe your research questions(s) and
objectives, and will be used to search the tertiary
literature. Keywords (which can include authors’
surnames identified in the examination of your lecture
notes and course textbooks)can be identified using
one or a number of different techniques in
combination.

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DISCUSSION
We believe you should be taking every
opportunity to discuss your research. In
discussing you work with others,
whether face to face, by email or by letter
,you will be sharing your ideas, getting
feedback and obtaining new ideas and
approaches. This process will help you
to refine and clarify your topic.

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INITIAL READING, DICTIONARIES,
ENCYCLOPEDIAS, HANDBOOKS AND
THESAURUSES
It is also possible to obtain definitions via the Internet.
The online search engine Google offers a ‘define’(by
typing ‘define:[enter term ]’) that provides links to
websites providing definitions .Definitions are also
offered in free online encyclopedias such as
Wikipedia(see box 3.9).These are often available in
multiple language and, although anyone is allowed to
edit the entries, inappropriate changes are usually
removed quickly [Wikipedia 2008].However, whilst
these websites may be useful for a quick reference or
in helping to define keywords, your university will
almost certainly expect you to justify the definitions in
your research project using refereed journal articles
or textbooks.

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CONDUCTING A LITERATURE SEARCH
(1)
Approaches can include
Searching tertiary literature sources
Obtaining relevant literature
Scanning and browsing secondary literature
Searching using the Internet

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(2)
Searching using tertiary literature
Ensure key words match controlled index language
Search appropriate printed and database sources
Note precise details used – including search strings
Note the FULL reference of each search found

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(3)
Printed sources
Databases – use of Boolean logic and free
text searching (Table 3.3)
Scanning and browsing
Searching the Internet (Tables 3.4 and 3.5)

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(4)
Searching the Internet
Figure 3.3 Searching the Internet

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(5)
Searching the Internet
Figure 3.3 Searching the Internet (Continued)

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EVALUATING THE LITERATURE
Define the scope of your review
Assess relevance and value
Assess sufficiency

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RECORDING THE LITERATURE
Make notes for each item you read
Record –
Biographic details
Brief summary of content
Supplementary information
Sharp et al. (2002)

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PLAGIARISM
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)

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