Designing Literature Reviews as a Research Project
by Sven Kunisch, Associate Professor of Management, Aarhus University (Denmark), David Denyer, Cranfield School of Management, Cranfield (UK), Jean M. Bartunek, Boston College, Chestnut Hill, MA (USA), Markus Menz, University of Geneva, Geneva (Switzerland), and Laura B. Cardinal, University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC (USA)
Research design is the Methodspace focus for the first quarter of 2023. Find the unfolding series here.
Review articles have become a credible and legitimate form of scientific inquiry
in various fields of science including management and organizational sciences.
Read these open-access articles:
Kunisch, S., Denyer, D., Bartunek, J. M., Menz, M., & Cardinal, L. B. (2023). Review Research as Scientific Inquiry. Organizational Research Methods. https://doi.org/10.1177/10944281221127292
Hiebl, M. R. W. (2021). Sample Selection in Systematic Literature Reviews of Management Research. Organizational Research Methods, 0(0). https://doi.org/10.1177/1094428120986851
See the Organizational Research Methods special issue: Rigorous and Impactful Literature Reviews.
And see more readings with subscription access:
Rousseau, D. M., Manning, J., & Denyer, D. (2008). Evidence in Management and Organizational Science: Assembling the Field’s Full Weight of Scientific Knowledge through Syntheses. Academy of Management Annals. https://doi.org/10.1080/19416520802211651
Tranfield, D., Denyer, D., & Smart, P. (2003). Towards a Methodology for Developing Evidence-Informed Management Knowledge by Means of Systematic Review. British Journal of Management. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8551.00375
The article “Review Research as Scientific Inquiry” promotes purpose-method-fit and offers guidance on how to improve the rigor and impact of review research.
While literature reviewing is part of any research project, reviews as a stand-alone research project seek to address academic, practice or policy problems using prior research as data sources. The diverse range of review research purposes and methods is both an opportunity and a challenge for producers and users.
In this article, Kunisch et al. identify eight general purposes: (1) classifying, (2) representing, (3) problematizing, (4) configuring, (5) aggregating, (6) integrating, (7) interpreting, and (8) explaining – and six aspects of rigor and impact – (1) design, (2) execution, (3) analysis, (4) synthesis, (5) contribution, and (6) utilization. The authors argue that the alignment of purpose and methods is crucial for producing high-quality review research.
More Methodspace Posts about Research Design
From the moment social media platforms began to welcome user-generated content, researchers have looked for ways to study it. Learn more with open-access articles about social media platforms.
Julianne Cheek and Elise Øby, co-authors of the book Research Design: Why Thinking About Design Matters, discuss how to make decisions about what qualitative, quantitative, or mixed methods data to collect and how to do so. This post is the third of a three-part series of posts that feature ten author interviews.
What if we didn’t have to go fast to do our academic work and research? What if we could embrace the spaces and places around us to slow down? What could that mean for us personally, professionally, and in how we relate to social justice and ecological issues?
Julianne Cheek and Elise Øby, co-authors of the book Research Design: Why Thinking About Design Matters, discuss how to make decisions about methodology in this collection of video interviews. This post is the second of a three-part series of posts that feature ten author interviews.
Chart research directions that take you to the roots of the problem. Learn more in this guest post from Dr. Donna Mertens.
We need to think about research before we design and conduct it.
Julianne Cheek and Elise Øby, co-authors of the book Research Design: Why Thinking About Design Matters, discuss the first three chapters in these video interviews:
Chapter 1 – Research Design: What You Need to Think About and Why
Chapter 2 – Ethical Issues in Research Design
Chapter 3 – Developing Your Research Questions
Partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) enables researchers to model and estimate complex cause-effects relationship models
How do researchers make design decisions about the methodology and methods?
In-depth comprehension and interpretation of social events, human experiences, and behaviours are often the main goals of qualitative researchers. Learn about the primary concerns of qualitative researchers in this guest post by Pinaki Burman.
Research can often feel like an overwhelming process. If you are a novice researcher, there can be a lot of new terminology to learn too. This is where research road mapping can help!
These difficult times present challenges for researchers. Find five original posts by Robert Kozinets about using Netnography to study sensitive topics.
Looking back at 2023, find all posts here!
We explored stages of a research project, from concept to publication. In each quarter we focused on one part of the process. In this recap for the year you will find original guest posts, interviews, curated collections of open-access resources, recordings from webinars or roundtable discussions, and instructional resources.
Methods Film Fest!
We can read what they write, but what do researchers say? What are they thinking about, what are they exploring, what insights do they share about methodologies, methods, and approaches? In 2023 Methodspace produced 32 videos, and you can find them all in this post!
Let’s begin this quarter’s exploration of research design by thinking about the research problem or topic. Who decides what to study?
Learn how to design and defend your PhD research with the Idea Puzzle software from Ricardo Morais.
Dr. Stephen Gorard defines and explains randomness in a research context.
Have you seen Dr. Gorard use card tricks to teach research methods? Watch this video!
Some of us feel that technology is everywhere, but that is not the case for everyone. Inequalities persist. What do these disparities mean for researchers?
Mentor in Residence Stephen Gorard explains how to use population data.
Margaret Roller compiled collections of articles about qualitative data analysis into useful mini e-books available for open-access download.
In this research conversation with Janet Salmons, Julianne Cheek and Elise Øby discuss the importance of an iterative, design-thinking approach to research.
What is autoethnography? How do researchers study their own experiences? See this post for definitions and open-access articles that explore this qualitative method for collecting data.
Researchers who want to collect both qualitative and quantitative data with mixed methods will find this conversation of interest. Drs. Linda Bloomberg and Merle Werbeloff walk through the process of designing and conducting mixed methods studies.
For researchers interested in incorporating equity into their work, it all starts at the very beginning with designing the study. Learn more in this guest post!
In the article “Theorizing Through Literature Reviews: The Miner-Prospector Continuum” Dermot Breslin and Caroline Gatrell pose an intriguing question: do you approach the literature review as a miner or as a prospector? They discuss options in an interview.
What are narrative methods? In this post find a description, and a collection of books and open-access exemplars that use qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods approaches.
The process for researching literature on research methods is somewhat different from the process used for researching literature about the topic, problem, or questions. What should we keep in mind when selecting methods literature?