Compendium OF Researchmethods

COMPENDIUM
OF
RESEARCHMETHODS
TOPIC 8
THE RESEARCH PROCESS:
CRITICALLY REVIEWING THE LITERATURE
(Zikmund, 2003, pp. 52 - 76; Sekaran, 2000, pp. 52 – 88;
Saunders, Lewis &Thornhill, 2000, pp. 12 – 83; Tuckman, 1978)
PURPOSE OF THE CRITICAL REVIEW
Saunders, Lewis, &Thornhill (2000) pointed out two major reasons for reviewing
the literature:
 The first is the preliminary search which helps you to generate and refine
your research ideas.
 Second, often referred to as a critical review to demonstrate awareness of
the current state of knowledge in your subject, its limitations and how your
research fits in the wider context. While your topic may focus on a specific
business discipline such as finance, marketing and human resource
management, it is likely that you will need to include other disciplines such
as economics, psychology, sociology, geography,…. Literature search is also
a continuous process throughout the project to identify research that
currently in progress and clarify your research questions further.
Other reasons for the critical review are:

 To help you refine further your research question(s) and objectives
 To highlight research possibilities that have been overlooked implicitly in
research to date
 To discover explicit recommendations for further research. These can
provide you with superb justification for ylour own research question(s)
and objectives.
 To help you avoid simply repeating work that has been done already
 To sample current opinions in newspapers, professional and trade journals
thereby gaining insights into the aspects of your research question(s) and
objectives that are considered newsworthy
 To discover and provide an insight into research strategies and
methodologies that may be appropriate to your own research question(s)
and objectives
THE CONTENT OF THE CRITICAL REVIEW
Your critical review will need to:

 discuss critically the work that has already been done in your area of
research and reference their work.
 draw out the key points and trends recognizing any omissions and bias and
present them in a logical way
 provide your readers with the necessary background knowledge to your
research question(s) and objectives
 establish the boundaries of your research
Thus, in writing your critical review you will therefore need:

 To include the key academic theories within your chosen area
 To demonstrate that your knowledge of your chosen area is up to date
 To show how your research relates to previous published research
 To assess the strengths and weaknesses of previous work including
omissions or bias and take these into account in your arguments
 To justify your arguments by referencing previous research
 Through clear referencing, to enable those reading your project report to
find the original work you cite. By fully acknowledging the work of others
you will avoid charges of plagiarism.
THE STRUCTURE OF THE CRITICAL REVIEW
Although there is no single structure that your critical review should take, it is
useful to think of it as a funnel in which you:
 Start at a more general level before narrowing down to your specific
research question(s) and objectives
 Provide a brief overview of key areas
 Summarize, compare and contrast the work of key writers
 Narrow down to highlight the work most relevant to your research
 Provide a detailed account of the findings of this work
 Highlight those issues where your research will provide fresh insights
 Lead the reader into subsequent sections of your project report, which
explore these issues.
The following is a checklist for evaluating your critical review (Saunders, Lewis,
&Thornhill, 2000, p. 47):
 Does your review start at a more general level before narrowing down?
 Does the literature covered relate clearly to your research question and
objectives?
 Have you covered the key theories?
 Have you covered the key literature or at least a representative sample?
 Are those issues where your research will provide fresh insights
highlighted?
 Is the literature you have included up to date?
 Have you been objective in your discussion and assessment of other
people’s work?
 Have you included references that are counter to your own opinion?
 Is your argument coherent and cohesive – do the ideas link together?
 Does your review lead the reader into subsequent sections of your project
report?
Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill (2000) further pointed out:

 Whichever way you structure your review you must demonstrate that you
have read, understood and evaluated critically the items you have located
 Linked together the different ideas you find in the literature to form a
coherent and cohesive argument, which set in context and justify your
research
 Show a clear link to your research question and objectives as well as clear
link to the empirical work that will follow
LITERATURE SOURCES AVAILABLE

Literature sources can be divided into three categories: primary, secondary and
tertiary. In reality these categories often overlap. Your use of these resources will
depend on your research question(s) and objectives. Some may use only tertiary
and secondary literature. For others, you may need to locate primary literature as
well.
 Primary literature sources also known as grey literature are the first
occurrence of a piece of work. They include published sources such as
reports and some central and local government publications such as white
papers and planning documents. They include unpublished manuscript such
as letters, memos and committee minutes that may be analyzed as data in
their own.
 Secondary literature sources such as books and journals are the subsequent
publication of primary literature. These publications are aimed at a wider
audience, They are easier to locate than primary sources as they are better
covered by the tertiary literature.
 Tertiary literature sources, also called search tools, are designed either to
help to locate primary and secondary literature or to introduce a topic.
They therefore include indexes and abstracts as well as encyclopedias and
bibliographies.
Primary Secondary Tertiary

Reports Newspapers Indexes
Theses Books Abstracts
Emails Journals Catalogues
Conference reports Internet Encyclopaedias
Company reports Some government Dictionaries
Some government publications Bibliographies
publications Citation indexes
Unpublished manuscript
sources
Increasing level of detail
Increasing time to publish
PLANNING THE LITERATURE SEARCH

When planning your literature search you need:
 To have clearly defined question(s) and objectives
 To define the parameters of your search
 To generate key words and search terms
 To discuss your ideas as widely as possible
** Techniques to help you in this include brainstorming and relevance

trees.
Further planning is necessary before commencing your literature search. This can
be done by:
 Defining the parameters of your search
 Generating key words and search items
 Discussing your ideas as widely as possible
Defining parameters within which you need to search:

 Language of publications
 Subject area (example-accountancy)
 Business sector (example- manufacturing)
 Geographical area (example- Europe)
 Publication period (example- last 10 years)
 Literature type (example- journals and books)
Identification of key words or search terms is the most important part of planning
your search for relevant literature. Key words are the basic terms that describe
your research question(s) and objectives and will be used to search the tertiary
literature. Key words can include authors’ surnames etc.
You will need to take every opportunity to discuss your research. In discussing
your work with others, whether face to face, be electronic mail or by letter you
will be sharing your ideas, getting feedback and obtaining new ideas and
approaches.
CONDUCTING THE LITERATURE SEARCH
Your literature search will be undertaken using a variety of approaches

in tandem. These will include:
 Searching using tertiary sources and the Internet
 Following up references in articles you have already read
 Scanning and browsing secondary literature in your library
OBTAINING AND EVALUATING THE LITERATURE
Once obtained, the literature must be evaluated for its relevance to your research
questions and objectives. This includes a consideration of each item’s currency.
Each item must be read and noted. Bibliographic details, a brief description of the
content and appropriate supplementary information should also be recorded.
Checklist for evaluating the relevance of literature:

 How recent is the item?
 Is the item likely to have been superseded?
 Is the context sufficiently different to make it marginal to your research
questions and objectives?
 Have you seen references to this item or its author in other items that were
useful?
 Does the item support or contradict your arguments? For either it will
probably be worth reading!
 Does the item appear to be biased? Even if it is it may still be relevant to
your critical review.
 What are the methodology omissions within the work? Even if there are
many it still may be of relevance!
 Is the precision sufficient? Even if it is imprecise it may be the only item you
can find and so still relevance!
Assessing sufficiency. You need to be sure that your critical review discusses what
research has already been undertaken and that you positioned your research
project in the wider context, citing the main writes in the field. One clue that you
have achieved this is when further searching provides mainly references to items
you have already read.
RECORDING THE LITERATURE

Solusi requires that you use APA referencing style that you must use in
your project report. Forms and Style: Theses, Reports, Term Papers by
Campbell/Ballou/Slade will be useful for this.
Tuckman (1978) briefly outline the main purpose of literature review.

These are:
 Discovering important variables. Literature provide ideas about
defining and operationalizing variables as well as identifying those
that have been related to others in ways that are both
conceptually and practically important.
 Distinguishing what has been done from what needs to be done.
We survey past work to avoid repeating it. Past works are viewed
as springboard into subsequent work, building upon and
extending them.
 Synthesizing and gaining perspective. There is much value in
summarizing the past work in a field and bringing it up to date.
The constantly expanding knowledge will have value when
collated and synthesized – a process which enables others to see
significant overlaps as well as gaps and to give a field directions.
 Determining meanings and relationships. Variables must be
named, defined, and joined into problems and hypotheses.
Introduction to research
The language and approach of science
Sets, relations and variance
Probability, randomness and sampling
Computer technology and business research
The research process steps 1 to 3: the broad problem area, preliminary data
gathering, problem definition
The research process: steps 4 and 5: theoretical framework hypothesis
development
The research process: step 6: elements of research design
Designs of research
Measurement of variables: operational definition and scales
Measurement scaling, reliability, validity
Methods of observation and data collection
Analysis, interpretation, statistics and inference
The research report
Managerial decision making and research

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COMPENDIUM

Other reasons for the critical review are:

THE CONTENT OF THE CRITICAL REVIEW

Your critical review will need to:

Thus, in writing your critical review you will therefore need:

THE STRUCTURE OF THE CRITICAL REVIEW

Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill (2000) further pointed out:

LITERATURE SOURCES AVAILABLE

Primary Secondary Tertiary

PLANNING THE LITERATURE SEARCH

** Techniques to help you in this include brainstorming and relevance

Defining parameters within which you need to search:

CONDUCTING THE LITERATURE SEARCH

Your literature search will be undertaken using a variety of approaches

OBTAINING AND EVALUATING THE LITERATURE

Checklist for evaluating the relevance of literature:

RECORDING THE LITERATURE

Tuckman (1978) briefly outline the main purpose of literature review.

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