Critically Reviewing the

Literature

Chapter 3: book 3
 Quiz No 3
Date: 29-03-2021
Time: 2:10 to 2:40 Pm
Time Allowed 20 Minutes
 What do we normally feel about Critical
literature Review (CLR)?
As part of your studies, you have almost certainly already been asked by your
tutors to ‘review the literature’, ‘write a literature review’ or ‘critically review the
literature’ on topics they have specified. Indeed, you may be like many students
and have grown to fear the literature review, not because of the associated
reading but because of the requirement both to make judgements as to the
value of each piece of work and to organize those ideas and findings that
are of value into a review. It is these two processes in particular that people
find both difficult and time consuming.
 Why we do CLR?
• The first, the preliminary search that helps you to generate and refine your
research ideas, has already been discussed
• The second, often referred to as the critical review or critical literature
review, is part of your research project proper.
 Importance of CLR
The significance of your research and what you find out will inevitably be
judged in relation to other people’s research and their findings. You, therefore,
need both to ‘map and assess the existing intellectual territory’ (Tranfield et al.
2003:208), establishing what research has been published in your chosen area,
and, if possible, to try to identify any other research that might currently be in
progress. Consequently, the items you read and write about will enhance your
subject knowledge and help you to clarify your research question(s) further.
This process is called ‘critically reviewing the literature’.
 The general process of CLR
It is a systematic way of retrieving information, organizing it logically, deducing
the key findings, examining the interlinked phenomenon and reaching out a
well-written CLR.
 The Purpose of CLR
It is impossible to review every single piece of the literature before collecting your
data. The purpose of your literature review is not to provide a summary of everything
that has been written on your research topic, but to review the most relevant and
significant research on your topic. If your analysis is effective, new findings and
theories will emerge that neither you nor anyone else has thought about (Strauss and
Corbin, 1998). Despite this, when you write your critical review, you will need to show
how your findings and the theories you have developed or are using relate to the
research that has gone before, thereby demonstrating that you are familiar with what is
already known about your research topic.
 Other purpose many include…
• to help you to refine further your research question(s) and objectives;
• to highlight research possibilities that have been overlooked implicitly in research to date;
• to discover explicit recommendations for further research. These can provide you with a
superb justification for your own research question(s) and objectives;
• to help you to avoid simply repeating work that has been done already;
• to sample current opinions in newspapers, professional and trade journals, thereby gaining
insights into the aspects of your research question(s) and objectives that are considered
newsworthy;
• to discover and provide an insight into research approaches, strategies (Section 4.3) and
techniques that may be appropriate to your own research question(s) andobjectives.
 Adopting Critical Perspective in Your Reading

• Previewing, which is looking around the text before you start reading in order to
establish precisely its purpose and how it may inform your literature search;
• Annotating; that is conducting a dialogue with yourself, the author, and the issues and
ideas at stake.
• Summarizing. The best way to determine that you’ve really got the point is to be able
to state it in your own words.
• Comparing and Contrasting. Ask yourself how your thinking been altered by this
reading or how has it affected your response to the issues and themes your research?
 Five critical questions to address in a CLR
1) Why am I reading this? (The authors argue that this is where the review question in
particularly valuable. It acts as a focusing device and ensures that you stick to the purpose
of the reading and not get sidetracked too much by the author’s agenda.)
2) What is the author trying to do in writing this? (The answer to this may assist you in
deciding how valuable the writing may be for your purposes.)
3) What is the writer saying that is relevant to what I want to find out?
4) How convincing is what the author is saying? (In particular, is the argument based on a
conclusion which is justified by the evidence?)
5) What use can I make of the reading?
 The Content of CLR
• show and explain the relationships between published research findings and reference the literature in which
they were reported.
• It will draw out the key points and trends and present them in a logical way which also shows the relationship
to your own research.
• provide readers of your project report with the necessary background knowledge to your research
question(s) and objectives and establish the boundaries of your own research.
• Your review will also enable the readers to see your ideas against the background of previous published
research in the area. This does not necessarily mean that your ideas must extend, follow or approve those set
out in the literature.
• You may be highly critical of the earlier research reported in the literature and seek to discredit it. However,
if you wish to do this you must still review this literature, explain clearly why it is problematic, and then
justify your own ideas.
 The Content of CLR (Continue..)
In considering the content of your critical review, you will therefore need:
• to include the key academic theories within your chosen area of research;
• to demonstrate that your knowledge of your chosen area is up to date;
• through clear referencing, enable those reading your project report to find
the original publications which you cite.
 What is really meant by being ‘critical’
about the content?
• critique of rhetoric; means appraising or evaluating a problem with effective use
of language (use your skills both of making reasoned judgements and of
arguing effectively in writing).
• critique of tradition; challenging the tradition viewpoints.
• critique of authority; identifying the dominant view portrayed in the literature.
• critique of objectivity: organization of the review to show value in the literature.
 The Structure of the CLR
Although there is no single structure that your critical review should take, researchers have found it useful to
think of the review as a funnel in which you:
• start at a more general level before narrowing down to your specific research question( and objectives;
• provide a brief overview of key ideas and themes;
• summaries, compare and contrast the research of the key writers;
• narrow down to highlight previous research work most relevant to your own research;
• provide a detailed account of the findings of this research and show how they are related;
• highlight those aspects where your own research will provide fresh insights;
• lead the reader into subsequent sections of your project report, which explore these issues.
 Literature Sources Available
• Primary literature sources are the first occurrence of a piece of work. They include
published sources such as reports and some central and local government publications such
as White Papers and planning documents. They also include unpublished manuscript sources
such as letters, memos and committee minutes that may be analyzed as data in their own
right (Section 8.2). It is because primary literature sources can be difficult to trace that they
are sometimes referred to as grey literature.
• Secondary literature sources such as books and journals are the subsequent publication of
primary literature. These publications are aimed at a wider audience. They are easier to locate
than primary literature as they are better covered by the tertiary literature.
• Tertiary literature sources, also called ‘search tools’, are designed either to help to locate
primary and secondary literature or to introduce a topic. They, therefore, include indexes
and abstracts as well as encyclopedias and bibliographies.
Literature Sources Available
Planning your literature search strategy
Before commencing your literature search, we suggest that you undertake further
planning by writing down your search strategy and, if possible, discussing it with your
project tutor. This should include:
• the parameters of your search;
• the key words and search terms you intend to use;
• the databases and search engines you intend to use;
• the criteria you intend to use to select the relevant and useful studies from all the
items you find.
For most research questions and objectives you will have a good idea of which subject matter is
going to be relevant. You will, however, be less clear about the parameters within which you
need to search. In particular, you need to be clear about the following (Bell 2005):
• language of publication (e.g. English);
• subject area (e.g. accountancy);
• business sector (e.g. manufacturing);
• geographical area (e.g. Europe);
• publication period (e.g. the last 10 years);
• literature type (e.g. refereed journals and books).
Have a look on this example:
 Generating your keywords
The identification of key words or ‘search’ terms is the most important part
of planning your search for relevant literature (Bell 2005). Key words are the
basic terms that describe your research question(s) and objectives, and will be
used to search the tertiary literature. Key words (which can include authors’
surnames identified in the examination of your lecture notes and course
textbooks) can be identified using one or a number of different techniques in
combination.
 The useful techniques for generating keywords
and research questions
• Discussion: discuss with other to clarify topic by having feedback
• Initial reading, dictionaries, encyclopedias, and handbooks
• Brainstorming
 Relevance Trees
Relevance trees provide a useful method of bringing some form of structure to your
literature search and of guiding your search process (Sharp et al. 2002). They look
similar to an organization chart and are a hierarchical ‘graph-like’ arrangement of
headings and subheadings (Box 3.11). These headings and subheadings describe your
research question(s) and objectives and may be key words (including authors’ names)
with which you can search. Relevance trees are often constructed after brainstorming.
They enable you to decide either with help or on your own (Jankowicz 2005):
• which key words are directly relevant to your research question(s) and objectives;
• which areas you will search first and which your search will use later;
• • which areas are more important – these tend to have more branches.
To construct a relevance tree:
1 Start with your research question or objective at the top level.
2 Identify two or more subject areas that you think are important.
3 Further subdivide each major subject area into sub-areas that you think are of relevance.
4 Further divide the sub-areas into more precise sub-areas that you think are of relevance.
5 Identify those areas that you need to search immediately and those that you particularly need
to focus on. Your project tutor will be of particular help here.
6 As your reading and reviewing progress, add new areas to your relevance tree.
 Assessing and Evaluating the Literature
• Obtaining the Literature: through multiple resources as mentioned earlier
• Evaluating the literature: read all the literature that is closely related to your
research question(s) and objectives. The literature that is most likely to cause
problems is that which is less closely related (Gall et al. 2006). For some
research questions, particularly for new research areas, there is unlikely to be
much closely related literature and so you will have to review more broadly.
For research questions where research has been going on for some years you
may be able to focus on more closely related literature.
 Assessing Relevance and Value
Assessing the relevance of the literature you have collected to your research
depends on your research question(s) and objectives. Remember that you are
looking for relevance, not critically assessing the ideas contained within. When
doing this, it helps to have thought about and made a note of the criteria for
inclusion and exclusion prior to assessing each item of literature. In contrast,
assessing the value of the literature you have collected is concerned with the
quality of the research that has been undertaken. As such it is concerned with
issues such as methodological rigor and theory robustness as well as the quality
of the arguments.
 Assessing Sufficiency
Your assessment of whether you have read a sufficient amount is even more
complex. It is impossible to read everything, as you would never start to write
your critical review, let alone your project report. Yet you need to be sure that
your critical review discusses what research has already been undertaken and
that you have positioned your research project in the wider context, citing the
main writers in the field (Section 3.2). One clue that you have achieved this is
when further searches provide mainly references to items you have already read.
You also need to check what constitutes an acceptable amount of reading, in
terms of both quality and quantity, with your project tutor.
 Recording the Literature
• Make notes of the research findings
• Record bibliographic details
• Brief summary of details
• Supplementary information
 Drafting
After all this processing and information collection, now you are in position to
sit calm, and start writing, logically explore the ideas, start with a broader view
but do not spend much writing on broad area and narrow it down to your key
research objective or problem statement.
Link the possible predictors, outcomes, changes you may suggest in the
research frameworks and agreement or disagreement with the past research.
 Plagiarism
1) Stealing material from another source and passing it off as your own, for example:
• buying a paper from a research service, essay bank or term-paper mill (either specially written for the individual
or pre-written);
• copying a whole paper from a source text without proper acknowledgement;
• submitting another student’s work with or without that student’s knowledge (e.g. by copying a computer disk);
2) submitting a paper written by someone else (e.g. a peer or relative) and passing it off as your own;
3) copying sections of material from one or more source texts, supplying proper documentation (including the
full reference) but leaving out quotation marks, thus giving the impression that the material has been
paraphrased rather than directly quoted;
4) paraphrasing material from one or more source texts without supplying appropriate documentation;
Theoretical Framework and Hypothesis
Development
Chapter 5
Do you remember the research process?
Where are we now?
The Need of Theoretical Framework

After conducting the interviews, completing a literature survey, and defining the
problem, one is ready to develop a theoretical framework.

What is it?

The theoretical framework discusses the interrelationships among the variables

that are deemed to be integral to the dynamics of the situ- ation being
investigated. Developing such a conceptual framework helps us to postulate or
hypothesize and test certain relationships and thus to improve our understanding
of the dynamics of the situation.
From the theoretical framework, then, testable hypotheses can be developed to
examine whether the theory formulated is valid or not. The hypothesized
relationships can thereafter be tested through appropriate statistical analyses.
By being able to test and replicate the findings, we will also have stronger
conviction in the rigor of our research. Thus, the entire research rests on the
basis of the theoretical framework. Even if testable hypotheses are not
necessarily generated (as in some applied research projects), developing a good
theoretical framework is central to examining the problem under investigation.
Variable

It is essential to understand what a variable means and what the different types
of variables are.

A variable is anything that can take on differing or varying values. The values can
differ at various times for the same object or person, or at the same time for
different objects or persons. Examples of variables are production units,
absenteeism, and motivation.
Types of Variables

1. The dependent variable (DV) (also known as the criterion variable).

2. The independent variable (IV) (also known as the predictor variable).
3. The moderating variable.
4. The intervening / Mediating variable.
Just have a look on the following model
for a few seconds:

Communication Organizational
Commitment

Transformational Employee
Leadership Retention

Now let’s learn what is this…

Dependent Variable (DV)

The dependent variable is the variable of primary interest to the

researcher. The researcher‘s goal is to understand and describe the
dependent variable, or to explain its variability, or predict it. In other
words, it is the main variable that lends itself for investigation as a
viable factor. Through the analysis of the dependent variable (i.e.,
finding what variables influence it), it is possible to find answers or
solutions to the problem. For this purpose, the researcher will be
interested in quantifying and measuring the dependent variable, as well
as the other variables that influence this variable.

Communication
Organizational
Commitment

Transformational Employee
Leadership Retention
Please read the following examples and
identify dependent variables:
Example 5.4 A manager is concerned that the sales of a new product introduced
after test marketing it do not meet with his expectations.

Example 5.5 A basic researcher is interested in investigating the debt-to-equity

ratio of manufacturing companies in southern California.

Example 5.6 A vice president is concerned that the employees are not loyal to
the organization, and in fact, seem to switch their loyalty to other institutions.
Independent Variable (IV)

An independent variable is one that influences the dependent variable in

either a positive or negative way. That is, when the independent variable
is present, the dependent variable is also present, and with each unit of
increase in the independent variable, there is an increase or decrease in
the dependent variable also. In other words, the variance in the
dependent variable is accounted for by the independent variable.

Communication
Organizational
Commitment

Transformational Employee
Leadership Retention
Lets dig into it, can you identify
independent variables here?
Exercise 5.3
A manager believes that good supervision and training would increase the
production level of the workers.

Exercise 5.4
A consultant is of the opinion that much benefit would accrue by buying and
selling at the appropriate times in a financial environment where the stocks are
volatile.
Moderating Variable

The moderating variable is one that has a strong contingent effect on the
independent variable–dependent variable relationship. That is, the
presence of a third variable (the moderating variable) modifies the
original relationship between the independent and the dependent
variables. This becomes clear through the following examples.

Communication
Organizational
Commitment

Transformational Employee
Leadership Retention
Example
Let us take another example of a moderating variable. A prevalent theory is that
the diversity of the workforce (comprising people of different ethnic origins,
races, and nationalities) contributes more to organizational effectiveness
because each group brings its own special expertise and skills to the workplace.
This synergy can be exploited, however, only if managers know how to harness
the special talents of the diverse work group; otherwise they will remain
untapped.
In the above scenario, organizational effectiveness is the dependent variable,
which is positively influenced by workforce diversity—the independent variable.
However, to harness the potential, managers must know how to encourage and
coordinate the talents of the various groups to make things work. If not, the
synergy will not be tapped. In other words, the effective utilization of different
talents, perspectives, and eclectic problem-solving capabilities for enhanced
organizational effectiveness is contingent on the skill of the managers in acting
as catalysts. This managerial expertise then becomes the moderating variable.
Exercise:

List and label the variables in this and the following exercise and explain and
diagram the relationships among the variables.

A manager finds that off-the-job classroom training has a

great impact on the productivity of the employees in her
department. However, she also observes that employees
over 60 years of age do not seem to derive much benefit and
do not improve with such training.
The Intervening/mediating Variable

An intervening variable is one that surfaces between the time the

independent variables start operating to influence the dependent
variable and the time their impact is felt on it. There is thus a temporal
quality or time dimension to the intervening variable. The intervening
variable surfaces as a function of the independent variable(s) operating
in any situation, and helps to conceptualize and explain the influence of
the independent variable(s) on the dependent variable. The following
example illustrates this point.

Communication
Organizational
Commitment

Transformational Employee
Leadership Retention
 Now look again
Intervening/Mediating
variable
Organizational
Communication Commitment

Moderating
variable Dependent
variable

Transformational Employee
Leadership Retention

Independen
t variable
You have 20 minutes for this activity:

Exercise 5.7
Make up three different situations in which motivation to work would be an
independent variable, an intervening variable, and a moderating variable.

You can use pen and paper to draw or write

You can use your computer to write in word
Once done share you screen to show your work or discuss it with all.