Week 2 Flashcards
Types of Literature Review (LR)
- Systematic literature review
–> ultimate goal for a RP, basically the whole paper is a LR
–>Follows and reports on a strict search and analysis protocol - Meta-analysis
–>Combines the results of previous quantitative studies and presents a quantitative analysis of those - Narrative literature review
–>Part of every RP
–>objective: present gaps in the existing literature
Why is a narrative literature review needed?
!! LR is not a summary on a topic: it is a critical reflection of it!!!
–>help refine research ideas (early stage- when you don’t have RQ)
–>Gain insights (also for RQ)
–>create a dialog: to place your own research within the existing body of knowledge, to show where it is novel
Academic vs Professional literature
*Academic literature = exploration of theory (state of the art of the theoretical knowledge)
* Professional literature (menagerial, business literature) = exploration of practice (managerial problems and their solutions)
–>Professional literature is not always used in the LR in academic publications
–>Professional literature does not have to be very objective!!
–>Professional literature appears faster than academic, so very important for novel topics and understanding the most recent developments; however, there is no universal expectations/approach to developing these sources, so quality, transparency, clarity, bias etc. vary a lot.
Main types of Academic Literature
*conference and working papers
(+) fastest to appear
(+) latest news
(-) quality not always guaranteed
(-) can be short- lack of details
(-) not always easy to access
*academic articles and journals
(+) primary source
(+) easy access through university
(-) delayed publication time
*academic books
(+) topic-specific or generic
(+) wide range of sources/authors
(+) good for topic overview
(-) quality varies
(-) not always easy access
*thesis and dissertations
(+) may be quite novel (reference list used etc.)
(+) good for topic overview
(-) not always easy access
(-) quality varies a lot
Main types of Professional Literature
*Reports & white papers
(+) useful if closely match your topic
(-) quality varies a lot
(-) may be biased
*Professional journals
(+)useful for up-to-date topic
(-) quality varies a lot
(-) may be biased
*Newspapers
typically written for a particular audience
(+) useful for up-to-date info
(+) availability in internet
(-) point of view–> biased
*Social media
(+) expert’s opinion
(+) availability in internet
(-) likely biased, expertise level varies
*Professional books
typically written for a particular audience
(+) “classics” theories
(-) quality varies
Systematic literature search: funnel approach
In essence, it is a funnel process that leads to reduction of the initial pool of literature and keeping in it only relevant sources.
Step 1: Build information pool
Step 2: Apply filters to reduce pool size
(combine search terms, use top journals, focus on sectors or countries…)
Step 3: Rough assessment of sources to reduce pool size
(read titles and abstracts, classify into relevant, probably relevant and not relevant
Step 4: Analyze literature in pool
(find new sources by scanning references, roughly classify literature according to theory, strategy, findings, detect possible gaps)–> quality considered!
Step 5: Refine filters or stop search
Systematic literature search: snowballing
- You take an academic article
- You check REFERENCES this article used (at the back of the article)
- You check CITATIONS of this paper (you can do it in Scopus, Web of Science or Google Scholar)
- Snowballing search is not a funnel, but an incremental process
Professional literature search
Always document all the search efforts as the process for professional literature search is less structured!!!!
because:
compared to the academic literature, business literature is sometimes harder to find and ‘filter’ (no abstract,
titles are not always clear, etc.)–> how you did the process-document it!
3 important factors when conducting a LR
- Relevance
–>does it contribute to the RQ
–>scan the text to fully read it - Quality
–>Reputation of source
–>Quality of source- only possible if you read the full text - Sufficiency
–>sufficiently state what is already out there
–>classical literature mixed with up-to-date
–>matter of judgement
–> keep searching and if the same pops-up: good sign
different types of papers contributions
- In exploratory (descriptive) studies
How large, how frequent, how important certain things are - In theory-building studies
How concepts relate to each other, and via which mechanisms - In theory-testing studies
Estimates parameters (regression coefficients, correlation coefficients, or other effect sizes)
Whether a hypothesis needs to be rejected/not - In decision science studies
What the optimal (or best) decision or solution is
General signs of quality
Academic article quality
* High number of citations (but not always a good ‘proxy’ for new papers or very ‘niche’ papers)
* Transparency in describing the method and presenting data
* Reflections on methodological quality and demonstrated effort to ensure it
Academic journal quality
* Journal rating – so-called ‘impact factor’
* ERIM list
Professional literature
* Is it from an unknown author or from an expert or known organization?
* Does it discuss alternative points of view (if not, maybe biased)?
* Is there transparency about the data: source and the method of analysis?
* Is the language and logic ‘calm’ and ‘rational’ or ‘attacking’ (also a sign of bias)?
Evaluation of a source: key chekpoints
*Evaluate relevance of a source of LR
if relevant which way it helps your LR
*Evaluate time factor
*Evaluate quality
4 ways of being critical
- Critique of tradition
* pay attention to ‘standard’ statements/ assumptions, especially if you see them repeated in many papers
* do not ‘blindly’ follow most cited sources
2.Critique of authority
* be sceptical about a theory or an expert opinion that is used very often to explain something
* strive to include alternative explanations/opinions - Critique of rhetoric
* note which support is provided to the conclusions; how valid (and complete) is the argumentation
* include alternative explanations/opinions - Critique of objectivity
* recognize if a paper tries to repeatedly support a certain point of view and not recognizes alternatives
Scientific (academic) writing: key components
Message (the most important!)
+ structure
+ language
- Message = content + purpose (what I am writing about, for which audience and why)
- Structure = order (of messages) + flow + pace
- Language = clear, formal, use of professional terminology, good grammar, concise…
Also order of thinking:
what are my messages
how to structure them
what kind of language to use
Plagiarism
means presenting ideas and work of other authors (including generative AI) as your own!!!
*Intentional –> research misconduct
*Unintentional –> harms your credibility
To avoid:
*include references in a list and in-text right away
*direct quotation marks if needed
*paraphrase & your own ideas
