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CRITICALLY REVIEWING
THE LITERATURE
Lecture 4 Dr. Bakhtiar Ali,
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Learning outcomes
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 Importance and purpose of the critical literature review

 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;
 evaluate the relevance, value and sufficiency of the literature
found;
 Referencing
Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill, Research Methods for Business Students, 5th Edition, © Mark Saunders, Philip Lewis and Adrian Thornhill 2009
Slide 3.3

Your Objective is to:

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1. Create knowledge by the method of gap-spotting:

2. What Makes Questions Unique? : Understand the
distinction between existing knowledge and new
knowledge
 Existing knowledge is everything that is known
about a topic as a result of past research
 New knowledge is added to existing knowledge
through ongoing research efforts

Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill, Research Methods for Business Students, 5th Edition, © Mark Saunders, Philip Lewis and Adrian Thornhill 2009
Slide 3.4

Your Objective is to: ………. cont.

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3. Typically, researchers create new knowledge through a

three-step process
1. they examine existing knowledge on a topic
2. they try to find gaps and misunderstandings in that existing
knowledge
3. they focus their research precisely on those gaps and
misunderstandings
4. The goal is usually to identify something that the larger
community of researchers does not understand, or does not
understand well
5. The goal is usually to identify a gap, not just in
researchers’ own knowledge, but in the accumulated body
of knowledge in the larger research community
Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill, Research Methods for Business Students, 5th Edition, © Mark Saunders, Philip Lewis and Adrian Thornhill 2009
Slide 3.5

Gap Spotting
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Gap spotting (Locke & Golden-Biddle, 1997)

 ‘Incomplete’ strategy – existing research incomplete

in some way
 ‘Inadequate’ strategy – existing research overlooks
an important perspective
 ‘Incommensurate’ strategy – existing research limited
in ways that knowledge is developed about a topic

Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill, Research Methods for Business Students, 5th Edition, © Mark Saunders, Philip Lewis and Adrian Thornhill 2009
(Alvesson & Sandberg, 2008, Working paper)
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Gap Spotting ……… cont..

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Gap Spotting (Alvesson & Sandberg, 2008, working

paper)

 Confusion spotting – clarify confusion arising from

competing explanations
 Neglect spotting – scanning for overlooked or under-
researched aspects
 Application spotting – shortages of application of a
particular theory or perspective
 Contributions therefore ‘correct misguided’ literature
Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill, Research Methods for Business Students, 5th Edition, © Mark Saunders, Philip Lewis and Adrian Thornhill 2009
(Alvesson & Sandberg, 2008, Working paper)
Slide 3.7

What is a Literature Review?

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• According to Creswell (2005), a review of the

literature “is a written summary of journal
articles, books and other documents that
describes the past and current state of
information, organizes the literature into topics
and documents a need for a proposed study.”
(pp. 79)

Creswell, J.W. (2005) Educational Research: Planning, Conducting, and Evaluating

Quantitative and Qualitative Research
Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill, Research Methods for Business Students, 5th Edition, © Mark Saunders, Philip Lewis and Adrian Thornhill 2009
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Definitions of a Literature Review

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A literature review
• surveys scholarly articles, books and other sources
(e.g. dissertations, conference proceedings)
relevant to a particular issue, area of research, or
theory.
• provides a short description and critical evaluation
of work critical to the topic.
• offers an overview of significant literature
published on a topic.
(Lyons, 2005)

Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill, Research Methods for Business Students, 5th Edition, © Mark Saunders, Philip Lewis and Adrian Thornhill 2009
Slide 3.10

Reasons for reviewing the literature

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• To conduct a ‘preliminary’ search of

existing material/knowledge
• To organise valuable ideas and findings
• To identify other research that may be in
progress
• To generate research ideas
• To develop a critical perspective

Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill, Research Methods for Business Students, 5th Edition, © Mark Saunders, Philip Lewis and Adrian Thornhill 2009
11 Searching Literature
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The literature review process

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Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill, Research Methods for Business Students, 5th Edition, © Mark Saunders, Philip Lewis and Adrian Thornhill 2009
Slide 3.13

Online Databases
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 ABC-CLIO eBooks  Gale/Infotrac/PowerSearch
Databases  Sage Publications
 ABI/INFORM Global
 IEEE Computer Society Digital  Safari Books Online
 Academic Search Premier
Library
 Atypon  ScienceDirect Elsevier
 IEEE Xplore
Springer
 Berkeley Electronic Press  Informaworld
 SilverPlatter
 Blackwell Synergy  IngentaConnect
 Taylor & Francis
 Business Source Premier  JSTOR Journals
 CRCnetBASE  Kluwer  TELECOMMUNICATIO
 ebrary  LexisNexis NSnetBASE
 EBSCOhost  SciNet database  Web Of Knowledge
 Electronic Collections Online  Metapress Wiley Interscience
 Emerald Insight  MyiLibrary Journals
 NetLibrary  OCLC WorldCat  WilsonWeb
 OXFORD Journals  IEEE Digital Library  WorldCat
 Europa  Google Scholar
 Project Muse

Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill, Research Methods for Business Students, 5th Edition, © Mark Saunders, Philip Lewis and Adrian Thornhill 2009
Slide 3.14

The Critical Review

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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
Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill, Research Methods for Business Students, 5th Edition, © Mark Saunders, Philip Lewis and Adrian Thornhill 2009
Slide 3.15

Adopting a critical perspective (1)

Skills for effective reading
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 Previewing: Looking around the text before you start

reading in order to establish precisely its purpose and how it
may inform you literature search
 Annotating: Conducting a dialogue with yourself, the
author and the issues and the ideas at stake
 Summarising: 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)
Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill, Research Methods for Business Students, 5th Edition, © Mark Saunders, Philip Lewis and Adrian Thornhill 2009
Slide 3.16

Adopting a critical perspective (2)

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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)

Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill, Research Methods for Business Students, 5th Edition, © Mark Saunders, Philip Lewis and Adrian Thornhill 2009
Slide 3.17

Adopting a critical perspective (3)

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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)

Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill, Research Methods for Business Students, 5th Edition, © Mark Saunders, Philip Lewis and Adrian Thornhill 2009
Slide 3.18

Aim of a literature Review

 To show your reader (your tutor) that you have read,
and have a good grasp of, the main published work
concerning a particular topic or question in your field.
 It is very important to note that:
 your review should not be simply a description of what
others have published in the form of a set of summaries,
 but should take the form of a critical discussion, showing :
 insight and an awareness of differing arguments,
 theories and approaches.
 It should be a synthesis and analysis of the relevant published
work, linked at all times to your own purpose and rationale.

Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill, Research Methods for Business Students, 5th Edition, © Mark Saunders, Philip Lewis and Adrian Thornhill 2009
Slide 3.19

Literature review should:

1. compare and contrast different authors' views on an issue
2. group authors who draw similar conclusions
3. criticize aspects of methodology
4. note that areas in which authors are in disagreement
5. highlight exemplary studies
6. highlight gaps in research
7. show how your study relates to previous studies
8. show how your study relates to the literature in general
9. conclude by summarizing what the literature says

Caulley (1992)
Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill, Research Methods for Business Students, 5th Edition, © Mark Saunders, Philip Lewis and Adrian Thornhill 2009
Slide 3.20

Structure of the literature review

 The overall structure of your review will depend largely on your
own thesis or research area.
 What you will need to do is to group together and compare and
contrast the varying opinions of different writers on certain topics.
 What you must not do is just describe what one writer says, and
then go on to give a general overview of another writer, and then
another, and so on.
 Should discuss controversial issues or by questions to which there
are varying approaches and theories.
 Within each of these sections, you would then discuss what the
different literature argues, remembering to link this to your own
purpose of research

Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill, Research Methods for Business Students, 5th Edition, © Mark Saunders, Philip Lewis and Adrian Thornhill 2009
Slide 3.21

Linking different views

 Linking words are important. If you are grouping together
writers with similar opinions, you would use words or phrases
such as:

similarly, in addition, also, again

 More importantly, if there is disagreement, you need to
indicate clearly that you are aware of this by the use of linkers
such as:
however, on the other hand, conversely, nevertheless
 At the end of the review you should include a summary of
what the literature implies, which again links to your
hypothesis or main question.
Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill, Research Methods for Business Students, 5th Edition, © Mark Saunders, Philip Lewis and Adrian Thornhill 2009
Slide 3.22

General Guidelines
 Don’t attempt to cover everything written on your topic
 You will need to pick out the research most relevant to the
topic you are studying
 You will use the studies in your literature review as
“evidence” that your research question is an important one
 It is important to cover research relevant to all the
variables being studied.
 Research that explains the relationship between these
variables is a top priority.
 You will need to plan how you will structure your
literature review and write from this plan.

Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill, Research Methods for Business Students, 5th Edition, © Mark Saunders, Philip Lewis and Adrian Thornhill 2009
Slide 3.23

Organizing LR
 Topical Order—organize by main topics or issues;
emphasize the relationship of the issues to the main
“problem”
 Chronological Order—organize the literature by
the dates the research was published
 Problem-Cause-Solution Order—Organize the
review so that it moves from the problem to the
solution

Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill, Research Methods for Business Students, 5th Edition, © Mark Saunders, Philip Lewis and Adrian Thornhill 2009
Slide 3.24

Organizing LR
 General-to-Specific Order—(Also called the funnel
approach) Examine broad-based research first and
then focus on specific studies that relate to the topic
 Specific-to-General Order—Try to make discuss
specific research studies so conclusions can be
drawn

Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill, Research Methods for Business Students, 5th Edition, © Mark Saunders, Philip Lewis and Adrian Thornhill 2009
Slide 3.25

Organizing LR
 Known-to-Unknown Order—Examine the current
literature about the problem and then identify at the
end what still is not known
 Comparison-and-Contrast Order—Show how
research studies are similar to and different from
each other

Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill, Research Methods for Business Students, 5th Edition, © Mark Saunders, Philip Lewis and Adrian Thornhill 2009
 Content of the critical review

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Scholarly Analysis of Selected Sources –

In-depth Analysis
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 Write your proposed research question or thesis statement on

the top of the page and fill-up following columns under these
YES headings.
Yes, BUT Yes, but No, BUT No, but NO

“Yes” “Yes, BUT” “Yes, but” “No But” “No, but” “NO”
indicates the indicates that the indicates that indicates that indicates that indicates
writer writer mainly they mainly overall author overall author that author
completely agrees with the agree with the disagree but disagree but totally
agree with position you wish statement but also have major also have little disagree
your to defend, have minor agreements agreements with me.
argument or however, he or disagreement(s) with some with some
thesis she has some . aspects of the aspects of the
statement major statement, and statement, and
disagreement(s). so on. so on.

Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill, Research Methods for Business Students, 5th Edition, © Mark Saunders, Philip Lewis and Adrian Thornhill 2009
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Completed Literature Analysis Hybrid Chart

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Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill, Research Methods for Business Students, 5th Edition, © Mark Saunders, Philip Lewis and Adrian Thornhill 2009
Slide 3.29

Completed Literature Analysis Hybrid Chart

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Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill, Research Methods for Business Students, 5th Edition, © Mark Saunders, Philip Lewis and Adrian Thornhill 2009
Slide 3.30

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Source: Troyer, 2007

Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill, Research Methods for Business Students, 5th Edition, © Mark Saunders, Philip Lewis and Adrian Thornhill 2009
Slide 3.31

Is your literature review critical?

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Complete the checklists to evaluate your LR

Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill, Research Methods for Business Students, 5th Edition, © Mark Saunders, Philip Lewis and Adrian Thornhill 2009
Slide 3.32

The key to a critical literature review

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 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)

Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill, Research Methods for Business Students, 5th Edition, © Mark Saunders, Philip Lewis and Adrian Thornhill 2009
Slide 3.33

Hourglass Model of Paper Structure

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Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill, Research Methods for Business Students, 5th Edition, © Mark Saunders, Philip Lewis and Adrian Thornhill 2009
Slide 3.34

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Thanks
Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill, Research Methods for Business Students, 5th Edition, © Mark Saunders, Philip Lewis and Adrian Thornhill 2009