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Literature review and content analysis

Lucio Lamberti

Research methodology seminars

September 27th, 2011

• The final work: general concepts

• The final work: structure

• Literature review: general concepts

• The literature review process

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Agenda

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THE FINAL WORK

3

What is the final work?

4

The characteristic of the final work

5

People involved in the final work

6

Always When applicable

Types of work

Project (just in CO) Thesis without discussant

Dissertation with discussant and

defence

Possible works •Report on empirical activities (generally,

stages and internships)•Review of state-of-the-art scientific literature on

interesting topics•Development of an entrepreneurial idea

through a business plan

•Empirical testing of an existing, state-of-the-art

scientific framework.•Exploratory, grounded

research•Systematic literature

review

•Disclosing essential new knowledge

•Development of a conceptual/theoretical

framework and empirical testing

Notes The work is evaluated by the supervisor and by another professor

For students enrolled before 2011/2012, methodological seminars are mandatory

The work is evaluated by the supervisor and by the commission

The work is evaluated by the supervisor, a discussant and the commission

Presentation Max 5 minutes Max 10 minutes Max 15 minutes

Efforts and evalutation

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Type N. meeting (expected) Increment

attainable

Average

effort

Uncertainty

Project (just

in CO)

At least 3 with

supervisors/co-supervisors

-1/+3 on 110 3 f.t. months* Very low

Thesis

without

discussant

Several, periodical meetings

with supervisors/co-

supervisors (5-8 on average)

-1/+5 on 110 6 f.t. months* Average-low (depends on

the empirical exercise)

Research

dissertation

Periodical meetings with

supervisors/co-supervisors

(at least 8-10 on average)

-1/+7 (+8) on 110 9 f.t. months* Average-high (depends on

the quality of the output)

How to apply

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When to apply?

• When you have enough time

• When you have the idea

• When you have a comprehensive perspective on the fields of interest (generally not before the first two

terms)

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A typical structure of a research dissertation

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Generation of essential new knowledge

Short thesis

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Poor contribution

Poor contribution

Poor contribution

LITERATURE REVIEW

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Literature review: general concepts

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•Critical and evaluative report of what has been published on a topic •Aimed at summarizing,

synthesizing and analyzing arguments of others.

•Description and analysis of extant knowledge and detection of gaps in research related to your field of

interest•Reveals similarities and

differences, consistencies and inconsistencies and controversies

in previous research.

•A descriptive list of papers or summaries•A procedure to look for the “best

contribution”•A non value-adding activity

•A way to conclude that a topic is interesting

Literature review: a description/definition

“A literature review uses as its database reports of primary or original scholarship, and does not report

new primary scholarship itself. The primary reports

used in the literature may be verbal, but in the vast majority of cases reports are written documents. The

types of scholarship may be empirical, theoretical, critical/analytic, or methodological in nature. Second

a literature review seeks to describe, summarize, evaluate, clarify and/or integrate the content of

primary reports“

(Cooper, 1988)

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…hence

• A literature review provides research stakeholders with a twofold outcome:

– Informs about extant wisdom on a topic, by presenting an evidence-informed summary of the results accomplished on specific issues

– Highlights blank or weakly covered areas for grounding incremental studies in the field, justifying further research efforts.

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How to approach a literature review

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Problem formulation

• Identification of a relevant problem in the extant managerial or research domain

• It is not an argument for a position or an opinion

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Good problem statement:“I want to understand how do

marketing and supply chain

management manage their

interfunctional interface”

Bad problem statement:“I want to demonstrate that

marketing and supply chain

management should interact

more than they do”

Choice of the review model

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Narrative/incremental (“snow puppet”) review

Systematic review

Narrative/incremental review

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Narrative/incremental review

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Narrative/incremental review: strengths and weaknesses

Thumb up

• Generally accepted as the mainstream approach

in management

• Creative, potentially richer in results

Thumb down

• The principles for the inclusion of contributions

in the review are affected

by the implicit biases of the researcher

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Systematic review: characteristics

• development of clear and precise aims and objectives

• pre-planned methods

• comprehensive search of all potentially relevant articles

• use of explicit, reproducible criteria in the selection of articles for review

• appraisal of the quality of the research and the strength of thefindings

• synthesis of individual studies using an explicit analytic framework

• balanced, impartial and comprehensible presentation of the results.

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Systematic review: an approach (Trandfield et al. 2003)

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The systematic review approach

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Possible sources (adapted from Colling, 2003)

Primary sources Report by the original researchers of a study

Secondary sourcesDescription or summary by somebody other than

the original researcher (e.g. review article)

Conceptual or theoretical sources

Papers concerned with the description of

theories/ideas and not empirism

Anecdotal sources Views or opinions that are not research

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Possible sources of reference

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http://www.isiwebofknowledge.com/

http://www.jstor.org/

http://scholar.google.it/

http://www.scopus.com/home.url

Watch out: not all the journals have the same authoritativeness

• Indexing and ranking of journals

– ISI Web of knowledge IMPACT FACTOR

– Other rankings (e.g. ABS)

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Descriptive review

• “Quantitative” review, based on the number of papers/sources published under certain

circumstances

• Useful to emphasize the growth in the debate, the

main contributors, the most/least developed issues,

etc.

• It is a part of the story. Not the story

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Descriptive review – an example

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TYPES OF CONTRIBUTION

Conceptual Empirical Literature review

MAIN TOPIC

NPD/NSD

Customer approach to co-creation

Company's approach

Branding

Production

Content analysis (Croning et al. 2008)

Primary sources Secondary sources - reviews Non-research literature

Title Title Title

Author and year Author and year Author and year

Journal (full reference) Journal (full reference) Journal (full reference)

Purpose of the study Purpose of the paper Purpose of the paper

Type of study Key definitions Credibility

Setting Review boundaries Quality

Data collection method Appraisal criteria Content

Major findings Synthesis of studies Coherence

Recommendations Summary/conclusions Recommendations

Key thoughts/comments Key thoughts/comments Key thoughts/comments

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Possible frames for literature reviews (adapted from: Carnwell and Daly 2001)

Approach Definition Advantages/Disadvantages

Identifying streams (e.g. themes or categories)

Discussion theme by theme Most popular

Empirical/theoretical

comparison

Themes must be clearly

related to literature

Chronological review Literature divided into time

periods

Suited to describe the

evolution of a phenomenon

Theoretical review Discussion of theoretical literature

followed by exploration of

methodological literature to

conclude about te research

design most suited to study the

topic

Useful when literature is

largely theoretical with little or

no empirical literature

Splitting theoretical and

empirical contributions

Discussing theoretical debate and

empirical findings separately

Tends to be more a

description than a critical

review

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Conclusions

• Whatever the method, a literature review must be consistent, trustworthy, original and rigorous

• The magic question: “if someone else had started

from the same sources, would he/she have reached

the same outcomes?”

• This does not mean that there is not creativity!

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References

• Cronin P., Ryan F., Coughlan M. (2008). “Undertaking a literature review: a

step-by-step approach”. British Journal of Nursing, 17(1), 38-43

• Colling J. (2003). Demystifying the clinical nursing research process: the

literature review. Urology Nursery, 23(4), 297–299

• Cooper H. (1998). Synthesizing Research: A Guide for Literature Reviews. Sage

Publications

• Coughlan M, Cronin P, Ryan F (2007) Step-by-step guide to critiquing research.

Part 1: quantitative research. British Journal of Nursing 16(11), 658–63

• Tranfield D.R., Denyer D., Smart P. (2003). Towards a methodology for

developing evidence-informed management knowledge by means of systematic

review. British Journal of Management, 14, 207–222.

• Tranfield, D., Starkey K. (1998). The Nature, Social Organization and Promotion

of Management Research: Towards Policy, British Journal of Management, 9(4),

341–353.

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