Slide 3.1 Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill, Research Methods for Business Students, 5 th Edition, © Mark Saunders, Philip Lewis and Adrian Thornhill 2009 Chapter 3 Critically reviewing the literature

Slide 3.2 Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill, Research Methods for Business Students, 5 th Edition, © Mark Saunders, Philip Lewis and Adrian Thornhill 2009 Reasons for reviewing the literature To conduct a ‘preliminary’ search of existing material that would have been discussed for the proposal To organise valuable ideas and findings To identify other research that may be in progress To generate research ideas To develop a critical perspective subject of this chapter

Slide 3.3 Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill, Research Methods for Business Students, 5 th Edition, © Mark Saunders, Philip Lewis and Adrian Thornhill 2009 The literature review process Source: Saunders et al. (2003) Figure 3.1 The literature review process

Slide 3.4 Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill, Research Methods for Business Students, 5 th Edition, © Mark Saunders, Philip Lewis and Adrian Thornhill 2009 The Critical Review (1) Approaches used Deductive - Use the literature to help you identify theories and ideas that you will test using data. The conclusions reached are certain, inevitable, inescapable Inductive - Explores the data to develop theories which are then tested against the literature. The conclusions reached are probable, reasonable, plausible, believable

Slide 3.5 Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill, Research Methods for Business Students, 5 th Edition, © Mark Saunders, Philip Lewis and Adrian Thornhill 2009 The Critical Review (1) Examples Deductive – All men are mortal. (General and no specific to one man) Socrates is a manSocrates (Therefore,) Socrates is mortal ( specific)Therefore Inductive - This ice is cold. (Specific, based on a direct observation.) All ice is cold. (General, can be applied to any ice) = 8 Three and five are odd numbers while eight is an even number. Therefore, an odd number added to another odd number will result in an even number.

Slide 3.6 Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill, Research Methods for Business Students, 5 th Edition, © Mark Saunders, Philip Lewis and Adrian Thornhill 2009 The Critical Review (1) Approaches used Deductive - Develop Theory Formulate Hypothesis Collect & analyze data Accept/Reject Hypothesis

Slide 3.7 Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill, Research Methods for Business Students, 5 th Edition, © Mark Saunders, Philip Lewis and Adrian Thornhill 2009 The Critical Review (1) Approaches used Inductive - Observation Pattern Tentative Hypothesis Theory

Slide 3.8 Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill, Research Methods for Business Students, 5 th Edition, © Mark Saunders, Philip Lewis and Adrian Thornhill 2009 The Critical Review (2) Key purposes To further refine research questions and objectives To discover recommendations for further research To avoid repeating work already undertaken To provide insights into strategies and techniques appropriate to your research objectives Based on Gall et al. (2006)

Slide 3.9 Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill, Research Methods for Business Students, 5 th Edition, © Mark Saunders, Philip Lewis and Adrian Thornhill 2009 Adopting a critical perspective (1) Skills for effective reading Previewing Annotating Summarising Comparing and contrasting Harvard College Library (2006)

Slide 3.10 Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill, Research Methods for Business Students, 5 th Edition, © Mark Saunders, Philip Lewis and Adrian Thornhill 2009 Adopting a critical perspective (2) 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)

Slide 3.11 Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill, Research Methods for Business Students, 5 th Edition, © Mark Saunders, Philip Lewis and Adrian Thornhill 2009 Adopting a critical perspective (3) Questions to ask yourself Why am I reading this? ( helps to focus on your subject) What is the author trying to do in writing this? ( helps deciding how valuable for your purpose) How convincing is this? What use can I make of this reading? Adapted from Wallace and Wray (2006)

Slide 3.12 Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill, Research Methods for Business Students, 5 th Edition, © Mark Saunders, Philip Lewis and Adrian Thornhill 2009 Content of the critical review You will need to Include key academic theories Demonstrate current knowledge of the area Use clear referencing for the reader to find the original cited publications ( Harvard Ref) Acknowledge the research of others

Slide 3.13 Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill, Research Methods for Business Students, 5 th Edition, © Mark Saunders, Philip Lewis and Adrian Thornhill 2009 Is your literature review critical? Checklists Box 3.2 and Box 3.3 Complete the checklists to evaluate your literature review Saunders et al. (2009)

Slide 3.14 Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill, Research Methods for Business Students, 5 th Edition, © Mark Saunders, Philip Lewis and Adrian Thornhill 2009 Structure of the literature review Three common structures A single chapter A series of chapters Throughout the report

Slide 3.15 Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill, Research Methods for Business Students, 5 th Edition, © Mark Saunders, Philip Lewis and Adrian Thornhill 2009 The key to a critical literature review 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)

Slide 3.16 Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill, Research Methods for Business Students, 5 th Edition, © Mark Saunders, Philip Lewis and Adrian Thornhill 2009 Categories of Literature Sources Primary (published and unpublished) Secondary Tertiary Detailed in Tables 3.1 and 3.2 Saunders et al. (2009)

Slide 3.17 Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill, Research Methods for Business Students, 5 th Edition, © Mark Saunders, Philip Lewis and Adrian Thornhill 2009 Literature sources available Saunders et al. (2009) Figure 3.2 Literature sources available

Slide 3.18 Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill, Research Methods for Business Students, 5 th Edition, © Mark Saunders, Philip Lewis and Adrian Thornhill 2009 The literature search strategy (1) Write down parameters of your search key words and search terms to be used databases and search engines to be used criteria for selection of relevant and useful studies And Discuss these with a tutor (if possible)

Slide 3.19 Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill, Research Methods for Business Students, 5 th Edition, © Mark Saunders, Philip Lewis and Adrian Thornhill 2009 The literature search strategy (2) Define the research parameters Language (English), subject area (Accountancy), business sector (manufacturing), geographic area( Europe), Publication period( last 10 years), Literature type(journals, books) Generate key words These are the basic terms that describe your research questions/objectives and will be used to search tertiary literature Discuss your research Brainstorm ideas Construct Relevance trees - use computer software

Slide 3.20 Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill, Research Methods for Business Students, 5 th Edition, © Mark Saunders, Philip Lewis and Adrian Thornhill 2009 Conducting a literature search (1) Approaches can include Searching tertiary literature sources Obtaining relevant literature Scanning and browsing secondary literature Searching using the Internet

Slide 3.21 Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill, Research Methods for Business Students, 5 th Edition, © Mark Saunders, Philip Lewis and Adrian Thornhill 2009 Conducting a literature search (2) Searching using tertiary literature Ensure key words match controlled index language Search appropriate printed and database sources Note precise details used – including search strings Note the FULL reference of each search found

Slide 3.22 Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill, Research Methods for Business Students, 5 th Edition, © Mark Saunders, Philip Lewis and Adrian Thornhill 2009 Conducting a literature search (3) Printed sources Databases – use of Boolean logic and free text searching (Table 3.3) Scanning and browsing Searching the Internet (Tables 3.4 and 3.5) Saunders et al. (2009)

Slide 3.23 Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill, Research Methods for Business Students, 5 th Edition, © Mark Saunders, Philip Lewis and Adrian Thornhill 2009 Conducting a literature search (4) Searching the Internet Saunders et al. (2003) Figure 3.3 Searching the Internet

Slide 3.24 Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill, Research Methods for Business Students, 5 th Edition, © Mark Saunders, Philip Lewis and Adrian Thornhill 2009 Conducting a literature search (5) Searching the Internet Saunders et al. (2003) Figure 3.3 Searching the Internet (Continued)

Slide 3.25 Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill, Research Methods for Business Students, 5 th Edition, © Mark Saunders, Philip Lewis and Adrian Thornhill 2009 Evaluating the literature Define the scope of your review Assess relevance and value Assess sufficiency

Slide 3.26 Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill, Research Methods for Business Students, 5 th Edition, © Mark Saunders, Philip Lewis and Adrian Thornhill 2009 Recording the literature Make notes for each item you read Record – Biographic details Brief summary of content Supplementary information Sharp et al. (2002)

Slide 3.27 Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill, Research Methods for Business Students, 5 th Edition, © Mark Saunders, Philip Lewis and Adrian Thornhill 2009 Recording the literature Bibliographic details (Table 3.6) Brief summary Supplementary information (Table 3.7) Saunders et al. (2009)

Slide 3.28 Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill, Research Methods for Business Students, 5 th Edition, © Mark Saunders, Philip Lewis and Adrian Thornhill 2009 Plagiarism Four common forms Stealing material from another source Submitting material written by another Copying material without quotation marks Paraphrasing material without documentation Adapted from Park (2003), cited in Easterby-Smith et al. (2008)

Slide 3.29 Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill, Research Methods for Business Students, 5 th Edition, © Mark Saunders, Philip Lewis and Adrian Thornhill 2009 Summary: Chapter 3 The critical literature review Sets the research in context Leads the reader into later sections of the report Begins at a general level and narrows to specific topics

Slide 3.30 Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill, Research Methods for Business Students, 5 th Edition, © Mark Saunders, Philip Lewis and Adrian Thornhill 2009 Summary: Chapter 3 A literature search requires Three main categories of sources Clearly defined research questions and objectives Defined parameters Use of techniques – ( brainstorming and relevance trees)