Research Methods
Lecture 4
16 November, 10-13
Johan Brink
C22
Agenda
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Conducting a literature review
Source criticism
Meta-studies
Reading
Reasons for writing a literature
review
WHY?
Reasons for writing a literature
review
You need to know what is already known –
reinventing the wheel
2. Learn from others mistakes and avoid them
3. Learn about different theoretical and
methodological approaches
4. Understand the context of the problem
5. Understand the structure of the problem
6. Help you develop your analytical framework
7. Consider to include additional variables –
extend research
8. Suggest future RQ’s
9. Help with the interpretation of your findings
10. Gives you pegs on which to hang your
findings
11. Its expected!
1.
A good literature review
1. Literature mentioned and discussed relates to the
problem statement of the study
2. Mentions different theoretical ideas contributing to the
future exploration or explanation of the study’s problem
statement
3. Summarizes previous studies addressing and
investigating the current study’s problem statement
4. Discusses the theoretical ideas mentioned against the
background of the results of previous studies
5. Analyses and compares previous studies in the light of
their research design and methodology
6. Demonstrates how the current study fits in with previous
studies, and shows its specific new contribution
Literature review
Good examples
• Includes a few good
review articles
• Write critical annotations
as you go
• Develop a structure
• Write purposefully –
make a point
• Back up arguments
• Ongoing
• Feedback
Bad examples
• No evidence at all
• Poor length
• Denser reading required
• Largely verbatim
• Poor structure
• Not correspond to
research objectives
Narrative literature review
• Traditional
• To generate
understanding rather
than accumulating
knowledge
• Evolving process
• Suitable for inductive
studies
Read!
Note
key words
Keep
notes
Generate
New keywords
Search
Note
referred literature
Systematic literature review
Critique against narrative literature review
– can lack a means for making sense of what
the collection of studies is saying
– can be biased by the individual researcher
– often lack rigor
• Not transparent
• Not reproducible
– low emphasize on practitioners
• The relevance gap
• The language of practitioners
Systematic literature review
• Planning the review
– Review Panel (Experts)
– Review Protocol
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RQ
The population
The search strategy
Inclusion & exclusion
• Conducting the review
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Identification of research
Selection of studies
Quality assessment
Data extraction
Data analysis
• Reporting and dissemination
– Report and recommendations
– Disseminating into practice
Systematic literature review
• Planning the review
– Review Panel (Experts)
– Review Protocol
•
•
•
•
RQ
The population
the search strategy
Inclusion & exclusion
• Conducting the review
–
–
–
–
–
Identification of research
Selection of studies
Quality assessment
Data extraction
Data analysis
• Reporting and dissemination
– Report and recommendations
– Disseminating into practice
Critique
• Depend on definitions
• Bureaucratic process
• Positivistic approach
• Tricky to deal with
qualitative research
Notes
Reference
Summary
Type
Theoretical
perspective
Main
RQ
Main
conclusion
Research
design
Empirical
data
Good /
Bad
References
IT- Tools
• EndNote
• ProCite
• Mendeley
• …
Style
• Harvard
– Name (year) title,
journal, Volume, issue,
pages
• Footnotes
– Bottom of page or end
Searching
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Key words
– Save them!
• Time dependent
• Different meaning in different
discourses
• US/UK
– AND, OR, NOT, *, ?, *,’xxx’
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References
– Times cited
– Authors
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Search engines & library
– http://scholar.google.se/
– EBSCO
– www.ub.gu.se/
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Review papers
– Academy of Management Review
– International Journal of
Management Reviews
Discuss 2 and 2
Come up with a suggestion for at least 5 search
terms for either a, b or c
After break write on board
Motivate your choices
a) Who becomes an entrepreneur and what does
it take to be a successful one?
b) What explains the difference in
internationalization strategies chosen by
financial institutions in Europe?
c) How effective is impression management in
the consultancy industry?
Hermeneutics
Part
Whole
Language games
• Wittgenstein
• Re-created
mranings of words
Source criticism
• Trustworthy source
– Updated?
• Independent sources
• Secondary sources
– The Chinese whisper game!
• Motivation
– Why do they say this?
• Peer reviewed, academic,
journals
• Trade journals
• Books
Meta-analysis
• Combining / Pooling of
quantitative studies
• Emerged in psychotherapy
research in the 70ties Overall
generalizations
• Positivistic
• Allows for an increase in
power and thus based on a
summary estimate of the effect
size and its confidence
interval, a certain intervention
may be proved to be effective
even if the individual studies
lacked the power to show
effectiveness (Ohlsson, 1994,
p. 27)
Meta-ethnography
• Translate and
interpretations of other
researchers studies
• Translations between
studies – what can I see
in this?
– Alternative interpretations
– Higher order interpretations
• Synthesis and expressing
(writing it up)
• Depends upon the
richness in empirical
material
Biblioteric studies
Biblioteric studies
Bibliometric studies:
Author co-citation
Bibliometric studies:
Co-occurrence keywords
Bibliometric:
Journal co-citation
Bibliometric studies:
Author co-citation (min 5 co-citations)
Reading
1. Read abstract
2. Skim through it!
1. Title, headings, chapters
2. Check empirical evidence & kind
of method
3. Check the references
4. Read sub-headings
1. Figures, tables, pictures…
5. Skim through preface and
introduction
6. Read conclusions, interesting
chapters, last chapter
7. ….Everything else
Reading
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Take notes
Nice position
Fresh and crisp air
Light
Use highlighting pens
Read & look at the text -Do not
‘sound out’ in your head -( no silent
speech)
• Do not bother with trying to
understand every word
• You actually reads sentences - Do
not focus on every word
• Read with a ‘moving pen’ -Do not go
back