The document provides an overview of conducting a literature review for business research. It defines what a literature review is and its purpose, which includes defining and limiting the research problem, placing the study in historical context, avoiding unnecessary replication, selecting research methods, relating findings to previous knowledge, and developing hypotheses. It also discusses evaluating literature sources for relevance and reliability. The document outlines the structure, organization, and writing of a literature review, including making links between studies, using summary tables, and citing sources.
2. Literature Review
A body of text that aims to review the critical points of
current knowledge on a particular topic.
A comprehensive survey of publications in a specific field of
study or related to a particular line of research.
Non-quantitative summary of existing published literature
made by experts who select and weigh findings available from
the literature.
A summary and interpretation of research findings reported in
the literature.
A process and documentation of the current relevant
research literature regarding a particular topic or subject of
interest.
3. Purpose of Literature Review
1. Define and Limit Problem
Develop familiarity and clarity with the topic
Limit the research to a subtopic within the larger body of
knowledge.
2. Place study in historical perspective
Analysis of way in which study relates to existing knowledge
3. Avoid unintentional and unnecessary replication
Awareness of prior studies so as to avoid unneeded replication
Replication is reasonable if it is needed to verify prior results,
investigate results that failed to be significant, or relate problem
to a specific site
4. Purpose of Literature Review (Cont.)
1. Select promising methods and measures
Knowledge of and insight into specific research designs for
investigating a problem
Awareness of specific instruments, sampling procedures, and
data analyses
2. Relate findings to previous knowledge and suggest
future research needs
Relating prior research to what is known places current study
in perspective
This knowledge allows researcher to focus problem on what is
not known
3. Develop research hypotheses
Suggestions for specific research hypotheses
5. What is Literature
Books
Journals
Conference Papers
Theses
Bibliographies
Internet
Indexes/Abstracts
Audio-Visual material
Government Reports
News Papers
Grey Literature
The Fourth International Conference on Grey Literature in Washington, DC, in
October 1999 defined grey literature as follows: "That which is produced on all
levels of government, academics, business and industry in print and electronic
formats, but which is not controlled by commercial publishers”.
Grey literature is not a specific genre of document, but a specific, non-commercial
means of disseminating information. (Wikipedia)
6. Three types of literature
Primary Secondary Tertiary
Reports Newspapers Indexes
Thesis Books Abstracts
Emails Journals Dictionaries
Conference Reports Internet Bibliographies
Company Reports Some Govt. Publications Catalogues
8. Boolean Operators
Boolean operators allow you to join terms together, widen a search or exclude
terms from your search results. This means you can be more precise in locating
your information.
AND
OR
NOT
10. Phrase Searching
It narrows your search down by searching for an exact
phrase or sentence.
It is particularly useful when searching for a title or a
quotation.
Usually quotation marks are used to connect the words
together.
For example
“Towards a healthier Pakistan”
11. Truncation / Wildcard
These search techniques retrieve information on similar
words by replacing part of the word with a symbol usually a *
or ?.
However, different databases use different symbols, so check
what is used.
In truncation the end of the word is replaced.
For example physiother* will retrieve physiotherapy, physiotherapeutic,
physiotherapist and so on.
In wildcard searching, letters from inside the word are
replaced.
For example wom*n will retrieve the terms woman and women.
12. Proximity Searching
It looks for documents where two or more separately
matching term occurrences are within a specified
distance, where distance is the number of intermediate
words or characters
For example
Term A NEAR Term B
Term A ADJ Term B
13. Focusing / Limiting a Search
There are many ways to focus your search and all search tools
offer different ways of doing this. Some of the ways of limiting
your search are as follows:
Date
Language
Place
Publication type
Age groups
Type of material e.g. you could just need to find case studies
15. Scholarly Search Engines
Google Scholar
Infomine
Librarians’ Internet Index
Intute
Pinakes
Business Research
ISI Web of Science
16. Subject Directories
Also called Information Gateways and Virtual Libraries
Yahoo Directory
Google Directory
Librarians’ Internet Index
About.com
Infomine
The WWW Virtual Library
Specialized Subject Directories
Abi Logic
Solid Crawler
Academic Info
SOSIG - Social Science Information Gateway
17. Electronic Theses and Dissertations - ETDs
Networked Digital Library of Theses and
Dissertations
Catalog of theses and doctoral dissertations contributed by
some 176 universities and 27 institutions worldwide
British Library EThOS
250,000+ theses of British universities
Many are free
Proquest Dissertations & Theses Database
World’s most comprehensive collection of dissertations
and theses with over 2.7 million titles
18. Online Databases
Bibliographic databases
ERIC, Agricola, Medline, EconLit, PsychINFO
Numeric databases
Stat-USA, UN Common Database
Full text databases
ScienceDirect, Emerald, JSTOR
19. Free e-books
Gigapedia
300,000+ books, the largest e-book repository
The Online Books Page
35,000+ books
Project Gutenberg
30,000+ books
Internet Public Library
20,000+ books
20. HEC – Online Resources
National Digital Library
Over 30 databases with over 23,000 journals
Accessible by 250 institutions in Pakistan
50,000 e-books
Links to open access resources
Pakistan Research Repository
Full text of over 1800 Pakistani doctoral theses
22. Evaluating information sources for
relevance – Book
Skim its index for your key words, then skim the pages on
which those words occur.
Skim the first and last paragraphs in chapters that use a lot
of your key words.
Skim introduction, summary chapters, and so on.
Skim the last chapter, especially the first and last two or
three pages.
If the source is a collection of articles, skim the editor’s
introduction.
Check the bibliography for titles relevant to your topic.
23. Evaluating information sources for
relevance – Article
Read the abstract.
Skim the introduction and conclusion, or if they are not
marked by headings, skim the first six or seven
paragraphs and the last four or five.
Skim for section headings, and read the first and last
paragraphs of those sections.
Check the bibliography for titles relevant to your topic.
24. Evaluating information sources for
relevance – Online
If it looks like a printed article, follow the steps for a
journal article.
Skim sections labeled “introduction,” “overview,”
“summary,” or the like. If there are none, look for a
link labeled “About the Site” or something similar.
If the site has a link labeled “Site Map” or “Index,”
check it for your key words and skim the referenced
pages.
If the site has a “search” resource, type in your key
words.
25. Use colour post-its to mark relevance
Red - high relevance
Blue – medium relevance
Yellow – low relevance
27. Evaluating information sources for
reliability (Cont.)
Audience
What age group/education level/political affiliation/etc. is the
audience?
Is this for a person with in-depth knowledge or a layperson?
Authority
Does the author’s name appear on the Web page?
What are his/her credentials?
Does the author provide contact information?
Bias
Is the source objective?
Could the writer or the organization’s affiliation put a different spin
on the information presented?
What is the purpose of the source?
28. Evaluating information sources for
reliability (Cont.)
Currency
When was the work published?
When was the work last updated?
How old are the sources or items in the bibliography?
How current is the topic?
If a Web page, do the links work?
Scope
What does/doesn’t the work cover?
Is it an in-depth study (many pages) or superficial (one page)?
Are sources and statistics cited?
If a site, does it offer unique info not found in any other
source?
30. Literature Review (How)
Points to note & report about any study
Main objectives and Sub-objectives
Any significant Theory in LR
Methodology
Population
Sample
Limitations
Nature of Data
Dimensions
Variables etc.
Statistical Test Applied
Findings
31. Structure of review articles
Literature reviews are in reality a type of research
Should conform to the anatomy of a typical scholarly
article
Abstract
Introduction
Methods
Results
Discussion
Conclusion
References
32. Structure of literature review
Introduction
Gives a quick idea of the topic of the literature review, such as the
central theme or organizational pattern.
Body
Contains your discussion of sources.
Conclusions/Recommendations
Discuss what you have drawn from reviewing literature so far.
Where might the discussion proceed?
33. Organization of literature review
A general organization looks like a funnel
Broader topics
Subtopics
Studies like yours
34. How to organize studies
Chronological
By publication date
By trend
Thematic
A structure which considers different themes
Methodological
Focuses on the methods of the researcher, e.g., qualitative
versus quantitative approaches
35. Making links between studies
Agreements
Similarly, author B points to…
Likewise, author C makes the case that…
Author D also makes this point…
Again, it is possible to see how author E agrees with
author D…
Disagreements
However, author B points to…
On the other hand, author C makes the case that…
Conversely, Author D argues…
Nevertheless, what author E suggests…
36. Summary table
It is useful to prepare.
Such a table provides a quick overview that allows the
reviewer to make sense of a large mass of information.
The tables could include columns with headings such as
Author
type of study
Sample
Design
data collection approach
key findings
37. Citation Sample Environment Method Conclusions
Atmospherics in service environments
Summary table of literature
Colour
Bellizzi, Crowley and 125 Adults Furniture store Laboratory Warm and cool colours created different emotional
Hasty (1983) experiment responses. Customers view red retail environments as
Photographic more negative and unpleasant than blue.
slide
simulations
Bellizzi, & Hite 70 Adult women Televisions Laboratory Study based on PAD affect measures and approach-
(1992) 107 Students shown with experiments avoidance behaviours.
different colour Photographic More positive retail outcomes occurred in blue
backgrounds slide environments than red.
Furniture stores simulations
Music
Smith and Curnow 1100 Retail store Field Time in store reduced with loud music but level of sales
(1966) Supermarket experiment did not.
shoppers
Milliman (1982) 216 Shoppers Supermarket Field The tempo of background music influenced the pace at
experiment which customers shopped. Slow tempo music slowed
customers down but resulted in increased volume of
sales.
Hui, Dubé and Chebat 116 Students Bank branch Laboratory The positive impact of music on approach behaviours is
(1997) - waiting for experiment mediated by an emotional evaluation of the environment
service. Video and the emotional response to waiting. Pleasurable music
simulation produced longer perceived waiting times.
Lighting
Areni and Kim (1994) 171 Shoppers Wine store Field The investigation found that brighter in-store lighting
experiment influenced shoppers to examine and handle more of the
merchandise in the store
Summers and Hebert 2367 Customers Hardware store Field Confirmed Areni and Kims (1994) results. Increased
(2001) Apparel store experiment levels of lighting will produce arousal and pleasure and
increase the approach behaviours of customers.
37
38. Citation styles
Information prominent citation
Example:
For viscoelastic fluids, the behaviour of the time-dependent stresses in
the transient shear flows is also very important (Boger et al., 1974).
Author prominent citation
Examples:
Close (1983) developed a simplified theory using an analogy between
heat and mass transfer and the equivalent heat transfer only case.
Several authors have suggested that automated testing should be
more readily accepted (Balcer, 1989; Stahl, 1989; Carver & Tai,
1991).
39. Active or passive voice
You should use, where appropriate, both active and
passive voice
As a general rule, use active voice unless there is good
reason not to
41. Verb tenses – Present
A statement about what the thesis, chapter or section
does
Examples:
This thesis presents a report of an investigation into …….
This chapter thus provides a basis for the next.
In this section, the results from the first set of experiments are reported.
A statement of a generally accepted scientific fact
Examples:
There are three factors that control the concentration of aluminum in
seawater.
The finite rate coefficients have an effect on heat transfer through a
horizontal porous layer.
42. Verb tenses – Present
A review of current research work, or research work
of immediate relevance to your study.
Example:
Schulze (2002) concludes that hydraulic rate has a significant effect on
future performance.
Comments, explanations and evaluative statements
made by you when you are reviewing previous studies.
Examples:
Therefore, this sequential approach is impractical in the real world where
projects are typically large and the activities from one stage may be carried
out in parallel with the activities of another stage.
The reason for this anomalous result is that the tests were done at low
hydraulic rates at which the plastic packing was not completely wetted.
43. Verb tenses – Past
Report the contents, findings or conclusions of
past research
Examples:
Haberfield (1998) showed that the velocity of many enzyme
reactions was slowed down if the end product had an increased
paramagnetism.
Allington (1999) found that the temperatures varied
significantly over time.
44. Verb tenses – Present perfect
In citations where the focus is on the research area of
several authors
Examples:
Several studies have provided support for the suggestion that the amount
of phonological recoding that is carried out depends on orthographic depth
(Frost, 1994; Smart et al, 1997; Katz & Feldman, 2001, 2002).
Joint roughness has been characterized by a number of authors (Renger,
1990; Feker & Rengers, 1997; Wu & Ali, 2000).
To generalize about the extent of the previous
research
Examples:
Many studies have been conducted in this field.
Few researchers have examined this technique.
There has been extensive research into.........
46. Show others
Have someone else look at your literature review for
Clarity
Can they understand what you’re trying say?
Flow
Does the organization make sense?
Completeness
Are there areas left out?
Questions left unanswered?
Statements without citations?
47. A Good Literature Review is:
Focused - The topic should be narrow. You should only present ideas and
only report on studies that are closely related to topic.
Concise - Ideas should be presented economically. Don’t take any more
space than you need to present your ideas.
Logical - The flow within and among paragraphs should be a smooth,
logical progression from one idea to the next
Developed - Don’t leave the story half told.
Integrative - Your paper should stress how the ideas in the studies are
related. Focus on the big picture. What commonality do all the studies
share? How are some studies different than others? Your paper should
stress how all the studies reviewed contribute to your topic.
Current - Your review should focus on work being done on the cutting
edge of your topic
48. Pitfalls
Vagueness due to too much or inappropriate
generalizations
Limited range
Insufficient information
Irrelevant material
Omission of contrasting view
Omission of recent work
49. Common errors in reviewing literature
Hurrying through review to get started could mean
that you will miss something that will improve your
research.
Relying too heavily upon secondary sources.
Concentrating on findings rather than methods.
Overlooking sources other than academic journals.
Don’t forget newspaper articles, magazines, blogs,
etc.
Searching too broad or too narrow of a topic.
Inaccuracy in the compiling of bibliographic
information.
50. When should I cite (Other than literature
Review)?
Is it your idea? Yes
NO
Is it common knowledge? Do not cite
No
Cite it!!
50
51. Performance Appraisal (Sequence)
Introduction (Introductory remarks about)
History and philosophy of …..
Reasons for (Importance) ………
Trends in (Global & Subcontinent)
History & Trends in Punjab (Pak)
The Act or Policy of……
Problems and Issues in ……
Gaps in the Literature
Your Objective