Literature Review Protocol
Author Contact and affiliation:
Project type:
Project title:
Support:
Craig Goodwin-Ortiz de Leon
15 Broadway, Unit 42
Bayonne, NJ 07002
USA
Doctoral Student
Grand Canyon University
cgoodwinor@my.gcu.edu
Dissertation in partial fulfillment of the requirements
of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in General
Psychology with an emphasis in
Industrial/Organizational Psychology
Job Satisfaction Among Telecommuting Employees of
Human Services Nonprofits During Multiple
Simultaneous Disasters
This literature review protocol and the literature review
project were independently developed and written by
the author with input from the author’s dissertation
committee.
Introduction
Rationale
The purpose of this literature review is to provide the context and justification for the
proposed study. Additionally, the literature review will describe what is known about the research
topic and what remains unknown.
Objectives
The phenomenon under study will be how telecommuting employees of human services
nonprofit have experienced working during multiple simultaneous disasters describe their
experiences as affecting their overall job satisfaction. Telecommuting is the practice of using
information communications technologies (ICTs) to complete work tasks in a location other than
the office. The COVID-19 pandemic has forced most information workers to work from home to
mitigate the spread of the virus. Additionally, human services nonprofits have had to
simultaneously provide services to victims of hurricanes, earthquakes, and other natural disasters
while addressing the needs of their clients related to the pandemic.
The review will address the following questions:

Have any studies described the phenomenon under study?

What themes emerge from the literature on the topics related to the phenomenon
under study or factors related to the phenomenon?

Which instruments have been used to collect data related to the phenomenon?

What research has been done on telecommuting employees of human services
nonprofits?

What research has been done to understand the job satisfaction of telecommuting
employees?

What research has been done to understand the job satisfaction of employees of
human services nonprofits?

What research has been done to understand the experiences of employees of
human services nonprofits who have experienced multiple simultaneous disasters?

Have any studies examined the relationships between telecommuting employees
of human services nonprofits and their supervisors and clients?
Methods
Eligibility Criteria (PI/EMS Framework)
Dimension
Population


Include
Employees of
human services
nonprofits
Telecommuting
employees of
nonprofit
organizations


Exclude
Volunteers
Board members
Eligibility Criteria (PI/EMS Framework)


Independent variable

Measure


Study designs
Years considered
Language
Publication status









Telecommuting
employees of private
firms or
governmental
agencies
Employees of
organizations that
have experienced
multiple
simultaneous
disasters
Telecommutingrelated variables
Job satisfaction
(global)
Job satisfaction
(facets)
Quantitative
Qualitative
Empirical studies
2020-2024
English
Peer-reviewed
journal articles
Edited academic
books
Dissertations
Books by prominent
scholars
Information sources
The following information sources will be consulted:

Grand Canyon University (GCU) electronic databases
o PsycINFO
o PsycARTICLES


Prior to 1970
All others
Textbooks
Popular works that
are non-academic

“Reference-mining” will be employed to determine seminal works and prominent
scholars related to the topic.
Search strategy
The following Venn diagram visually represents the components of the phenomenon
under study:
Population
• Employees of human services
nonprofits
Context
• Multiple
simultaneous
disasters
(COVID-19 plus
other)
Intervention
• Telecommuting
Measure
• Job satisfaction
The following keywords were developed to perform the database searches:
Population






Nonprofit
Not-for-profit
Non-profit
“human
services”
“social
services”
“community
services”
Intervention






Telecommut*
Telework*
“work from
home”
“working
from home”
“remote
work”
“working
remotely”
Measure




“job
satisfaction”
“work
satisfaction”
“employee
satisfaction”
“turnover
intention”
Context






“simultaneous
disasters”
Hurricane
Wildfire
Earthquake
Pandemic
COVID-19
Queries
Initial searches for studies related to “job satisfaction among telecommuting employees
of human services nonprofits” during topic development resulted in no matches. Therefore, the
literature search will expand to include any job satisfaction studies among telecommuters, and
any job satisfaction studies among employees of human services nonprofits. The following
queries will be run in the selected GCU electronic databases:

To search for studies related to job satisfaction among telecommuting employees:
o ( "job satisfaction" or “work satisfaction” or “employee satisfaction” or
“turnover intention” ) AND ( telework* or telecommut*or "work from
home" or "working from home" or "remote work" or "working remotely"
or "remote workers" )

To search for studies related to job satisfaction among human services nonprofit
employees:
o ( "job satisfaction" or “work satisfaction” or “employee satisfaction” or
“turnover intention” ) AND ( “human services” or “social services” or
“community services” ) AND ( “nonprofit” or “not-for-profit” or “nonprofit” )

To search for studies related to telecommuting generally in order to understand
recent research trends on the topic:
o ( telework* or telecommut*or "work from home" or "working from home"
or "remote work" or "working remotely" or "remote workers" )

To search for studies related to job satisfaction to understand recent research
trends on the topic:
o ( "job satisfaction" or “work satisfaction” or “employee satisfaction” or
“turnover intention” )

To search for studies related to people experiencing multiple simultaneous
disasters. Additional keywords will likely be discovered during the search process
to narrow the results.
o ( “multiple simultaneous disasters” )
o The AND operator will be added to find studies related to the population,
intervention, and measure.
o The OR operator will be used to search for articles using the context
keywords in the keyword table above.
Limiters
The following limiters will be applied to focus the search:

Research Article

Publication Year: 2020-2024

Language: English

Publication Type: Academic Journal

Document Type: Article
Study records
Data management
All citation records will be stored and organized in Zotero. Folders for each search will
be created, and three decision folders—include, exclude, and background articles—will also be
created.
A spreadsheet will be created in Microsoft Excel that will become a “literature matrix” to
track data extracted from the articles selected for inclusion. This will serve as a writing aid
during the drafting of the report.
Selection process
The author will exclusively make the selections of articles to include in the review
throughout the screening, eligibility, and inclusion processes. The dissertation committee and
GCU academic quality reviewers will be consulted to discuss the appropriateness of the articles
selected. First the initial search results will be imported into Zotero.
Data collection process
The author will use the Readwise web application to review and annotate selected
articles. A source page with metadata imported from Zotero will be created in the author’s Roam
Research page dedicated to this project. The notes taken in Readwise are automatically imported
into Roam Research for synthesis, tracking, and organization. Key data will be entered into the
literature matrix for easy reference. Tags will be used in Roam Research to match literature
matrix data to the notes in Roam Research.
Data items
Data will be sought for the following variables:

Telecommuting (e.g., extent of telecommuting, presence of telecommuting
policies, etc.)

Job satisfaction (both global and facets)
Outcomes and prioritization
Job satisfaction is the primary outcome that will be studied in the literature review. Other
outcomes may emerge as the literature is analyzed.
Synthesis
The data collected in the review might be quantitatively analyzed to better understand
existing research on the phenomenon. This might include converting study results to proportions
to allow for comparisons between studies. Other statistical procedures may be used to analyze
high-level data to understand trends and results related to the phenomenon. The data will be
qualitatively synthesized and presented in a manner that aligns with the dissertation scoring
rubric provided by GCU.
Search Strategy Notes
Work-family balance (7/19/2023)

Reference-mining used to determine seminal and landmark works. Sought out
most recent research in the field.

Searched GCU dissertations for studies of work-life balance; one dissertation
chosen.

I have a good mix of journal articles, edited chapters, and a dissertation to provide
breadth and depth to the review.