Journal of Management Studies ••:•• 2020

doi:10.1111/joms.12582

The Problematizing Review: A Counterpoint to

Elsbach and Van Knippenberg’s Argument for
Integrative Reviews

Mats Alvessona and Jörgen Sandbergb,c

a
Lund University; bThe University of Queensland; cUniversity of Warwick

ABSTRACT In this paper we provide a counterpoint to conventional views on integrative reviews

in knowledge development, as exemplified by Elsbach and Van Knippenberg (2020). First, we
critique their proposed integrative review by identifying and problematizing several key as-
sumptions underlying it, particularly their idea that the integrative review can simply build on
existing studies and lead the way to knowledge. Second, based on this critique, we propose as an
alternative the problematizing review, which is based on the following four core principles: the
ideal of reflexivity, reading more broadly but selectively, not accumulating but problematizing,
and the concept that ‘less is more’. In contrast to the integrative review, which regards reviews as
a ‘building exercise’, the problematizing review regards reviews as an ‘opening up exercise’ that
enables researchers to imagine how to rethink existing literature in ways that generate new and
‘better’ ways of thinking about specific phenomena.
Keywords: knowledge development, literature review, problematization, reflexivity

INTRODUCTION
Systematically going through existing studies within a specific area is a vital part of al-
most all research. Many researchers find ambitious and systematic literature reviews
highly beneficial, as they help them to get a better grasp of a specific domain of research.
Although literature reviews are also carried out in individual research papers, as a way
of establishing an area for contribution (Locke and Golden-Biddle, 1997), this is typi-
cally done in a selective and rather superficial and simplistic way. This is because sum-
marizing existing work in a few pages encourages arbitrary divisions and rather crude
ways of representing sometimes highly complex studies. More thorough, ambitious and

Address for reprints: Jörgen Sandberg, UQ Business School, The University of Queensland, Brisbane,
Queensland 4072, Australia ([email protected]).

© 2020 Society for the Advancement of Management Studies and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
2 M. Alvesson and J. Sandberg

comprehensive literature reviews of a research domain in the form of review articles,

handbooks and monographs are therefore welcome.
Elsbach and Van Knippenberg (2020) (hereafter E&K) argue that ‘integrative reviews’
are among the most useful vehicles for advancing knowledge and furthering research
in a research domain. It is, however, important to keep in mind that there are many
different types of literature review and that these have varying purposes (e.g., Post et al.,
2020; Snyder, 2019). Sometimes they are represented as ‘critical reviews’, ‘theoretical re-
views’, ‘systematic reviews’ or ‘semi-systematic’ reviews (Hoon and Baluch, 2019). Most
distinctions are not clear-cut, and we believe that some of the defining characteristics of
E&K’s take on ‘integrative review’ may in practice be difficult to uphold, such as their
idea that the integrative review can simply build on existing studies and point the way to
knowledge.
Nevertheless, we regard E&K’s paper as valuable and solid, and find that it contains
much of relevance to review authors working within a specific research tradition. Our
basic view of knowledge and doing research is, however, rather different from theirs.
Instead of seeing reviews as a way to generate ‘representative description[s] of a field’
(E&K, p. 1) and then, building on them to further our knowledge of phenomena, we are
more interested in reviews that enable researchers to critically interrogate and reimagine
existing literature in order to generate new and ‘better’ ways of thinking about specific
phenomena. We are therefore more inclined to see a review as an ‘opening up’ rather
than a ‘building exercise’, as a catalyst for starting up new conversations rather than just
continuing old ones (Patriotta, 2017). In order to open up and start a new conversation
about the review phenomenon, we first identify and problematize some key assumptions
and knowledge claims made by E&K and then, suggest the problematizing review as an alter-
native to their integrative review for knowledge advancement.

CRITICAL REFLECTION ON THE INTEGRATIVE REVIEW

Our fundamental view of reading and learning from texts is that it is important to con-
sider taken-for-granted – or at least implicit – assumptions and ‘this is the way to do it’
claims (Alvesson and Sandberg, 2013b). Although these assumptions and claims may
at first sight make sense and appear obvious, they often tend to be constraining and
normalizing, particularly if they are not made explicit and unpacked for consideration
and discussion. We used this problematization approach in reading E&K’s article and
identified several assumptions underpinning their argument for using integrative reviews
as a vehicle for knowledge advancement. Here we articulate and critically evaluate seven
of their key assumptions:

• treating the review domain as more or less given

• privileging hegemonic ambiguous big concepts
• following the jigsaw-puzzle metaphor
• assuming an accumulation view of knowledge
• advocating a (near) full stock inventory
• assuming author neutrality
• believing that review articles are a good thing

© 2020 Society for the Advancement of Management Studies and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
 The Problematizing Review 3

Treating the Review Domain as More or Less Given

A critical problem (often sidestepped) in reviews is what defines the domain of a review
publication. E&K suggest that ‘an integrative review proffers a clear point of view that
defines important research questions that should be (and should not be) examined’, and
that ‘integrative reviews mean a focused approach’. This proposition seems to assume
that the review domain is more or less given. However, most of what we study has no
clear or absolute boundaries. For example, although established bodies of literature may
use labels such as ‘institution’, ‘leadership’, ‘ethnicity’, ‘conflict’ and ‘knowledge man-
agement’ to describe their domain, these labels may not convey much meaning due
to the endless variation in their usage. Literatures using contrasting labels to represent
different research domains may appear to mirror how different parts of reality can be
conveniently distinguished. However, a closer and more critical look at these literatures
may reveal that the same or similar domains are actually represented in very different
ways. Moreover, in response to changing academic fashions and publication possibilities,
academics often relabel their work to stay ‘relevant’, which further complicates the task
of establishing the content of a review domain.
Despite these labelling ambiguities, review authors often ‘solve’ the problem of do-
main boundaries by taking labels too seriously. What is included in a review article is
typically based on key words, titles or abstracts. It is therefore a clear risk that what is
incorporated in a review is an ambiguous mess, while literatures that could be relevant
are excluded. Hence, constructing the review domain and its boundaries in a thoughtful,
creative and critical way is a key challenge: not necessarily one best addressed by follow-
ing the criterion of being clear, focused and relying on the domain labels used by estab-
lished literature. Instead, we need to consider that domain labels may bear the imprint of
rhetorical strategies used by authors who are eager to increase the persuasiveness of their
work, which may easily camouflage what their publications are ‘really’ about.

Privileging Hegemonic Ambiguous Big Concepts

The almost exponential expansion of management studies (Corbett et al., 2014; Engwall
and Zagagni, 1998) has made it a very crowded territory, leading to a stronger need for
researchers to position themselves clearly in a particular knowledge domain and show
how it differs from others. In this regard, the integrative reviews of specific research
domains proposed by E&K can be seen as highly valuable, giving researchers a clearer
bearing in a crowded academic field. However, as we have already noted, established and
appealing domain concepts, such as ‘institution’, ‘knowledge’, ‘strategy’, ‘sensemaking’,
‘leadership’, ‘diversity’, ‘power’ and ‘resistance’, are easily overused and filled with a va-
riety of ambiguous meanings. Alvesson and Blom (forthcoming) refer to such concepts as
hegemonic ambiguous big concepts (hembigs). A hembig is a scientific concept charac-
terized by its broad scope and ambiguous meanings, which at the same time, and some-
what paradoxically, through its dominance crowds out other less fashionable concepts or
prevents the development of a more precise terminology.
Over time these big concepts tend to exercise a hegemonic influence on researchers be-
cause it is difficult to escape them. Review publications, special issue editors and research-
ers are often eager to build up large and impressive ‘knowledge brands’ (Mehrpouya and

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4 M. Alvesson and J. Sandberg

Willmott, 2018), and are therefore sometimes not especially interested in clear, focused,
and well-delimited differences among studies. Instead, they promote pluralism, which
tends to camouflage extremely diverse work under the same hembig concept. For exam-
ple, many advocates of ‘institution’ regard variation as an indicator of healthy pluralism
and see its different versions as offering the promise of theory integration. However, ‘for
those who have attempted to scratch beneath the surface of this supposed promise, one
experience would have to be very common: considerable confusion’ (Lok, 2020, p. ref to
come). The same applies to ‘sensemaking’, which is commonly portrayed as something
uniform and clear by its advocates, when what it actually represents is highly ambiguous
and vague (Sandberg and Tsoukas, 2015; 2020).
The problem of hembig concepts is often exacerbated by the integrative review, which
is guided by an expectation of sameness and the imperative of not excluding any texts
from the ‘article catch’, but rather integrating everything into a coherent whole. Sameness
is therefore privileged over difference. A counter-assumption is that the relationship be-
tween the hembig concept and published texts referring to it is, at best, highly ambiguous
and that any sorting device taking hembig concepts too seriously may risk generating
misleading reviews and building on elements that fit very badly together.

Following the Jigsaw-Puzzle Metaphor

Another assumption guiding E&K and many review authors is that existing studies
within a research domain can be viewed as pieces in a large jigsaw puzzle (Alvesson and
Sandberg, 2018). As E&K argue, ‘if we see management research as focused on solving
puzzles (i.e., answering research questions in the field), individual studies provide pieces
of the puzzle rather than solve the puzzle’ (p. 3). In this view, the overall point of the in-
tegrative review is to piece together a clearer image of the domain in question and, based
on this, to identify what pieces are missing and what pieces need to be shifted around to
make the puzzle more complete. In other words, if you get everything sorted out and
placed in the right way, you can demonstrate how the picture should look: for example,
provide answers to the research question and deliver robust knowledge results.
However, individual studies are not necessarily best seen as supplementing each other
and forming pieces in a jigsaw puzzle. Even if the ambition is to produce integration,
all the ambiguities, frictions, conflicting perspectives and results within a domain need
to be considered. An alternative metaphor could be to see the research domain more
as a ‘jungle’ or a ‘maze’, where navigation is difficult and attempting to turn it into a
‘French baroque garden’ is not only a hopeless task but also highly problematic as an
ideal (Alvesson and Sandberg, forthcoming).

Assuming an Accumulation View of Knowledge

Closely related to the jigsaw-puzzle view is the strongly held assumption that knowledge
production is cumulative, which underpins E&K’s integrative review and many other
types of review article. The accumulation norm suggests that advancement of scientific
knowledge occurs through an ongoing accumulation of studies within a research domain
(Alvesson and Sandberg, 2013a, p. 134). Thus E&K argue that ‘we build knowledge
through programs of research in which studies help advance knowledge by building on

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 The Problematizing Review 5

previous work and setting the stage for future research’ (p. 3). The wealth of studies com-
bined may offer strong and reliable parts of a large knowledge-building project.
Although the accumulation norm overlaps with the jigsaw-puzzle view, it is not the
same. You may work with a jigsaw puzzle while being sceptical to accumulation, and you
can believe in the latter without adapting the puzzle metaphor. However, combinations
of the two are common: working with a complicated puzzle and being suspicious about
the value of the pieces mean an overwhelmingly complicated project.
Since Kuhn (1970) there has been much critique and questioning of the accumula-
tion ideal (Abbott, 2006), particularly from the paradigm and multi-paradigm literature
(e.g., Burrell and Morgan, 1979; Deetz, 1996; Tsoukas and Knudsen, 2004). Most, if
not all, research builds on, and is constrained by, paradigmatic and other assumptions.
Sometimes critique shows that many research studies lack real value or are so depen-
dent on their paradigmatic grounding that they cannot be compared with other work,
making accumulation very difficult or impossible, hence the notion of incommensura-
bility (Jackson and Carter, 1991). An alternative to the accumulation norm is to point at
divergence and problematic assumptions, and to emphasize productive dissensus. This
has consequences for the integrative part of a systematic review and suggests that what
studies indicate on an aggregated level may not be the best way forward for research.

Advocating a (Near) Full Stock Inventory

Related to the accumulation view is the assumption that review articles should aim to
cover very broad areas. An ideal seems to be to include all articles in leading journals
and/or frequently cited papers over a long period of time. E&K refer approvingly to the
recommendation to ‘systematically trace much (or maybe even all) of the literature on a
selected topic back to its roots (Callahan, 2010)’ (p. 3).
The (near) full stock inventory ideal exacerbates the previously mentioned problems
of superficiality and domain specification in two central ways. One issue is that studies
labelled in the same way, but actually addressing different phenomena, are lumped to-
gether, producing a pseudo-unity. The other problem is that studies which are actually
referring to the same phenomenon, but are labelled differently from the key label for the
review, are not targeted for inclusion. The first problem is over-inclusion; the other is
exclusion.
Consequently, the (near) full stock inventory ideal means in practice an overreliance on
the ‘right’ label, which may prevent the review author identifying studies that are highly
relevant to the specific phenomenon being addressed, but that are not labelled as such.
Using a full stock inventory approach in reviews means, then, that knowledge develop-
ment can easily become built less upon core insights than upon adding to literatures
labelled in specific ways, which further reinforces the already problematic box research
prevalent within management and organization studies (Alvesson and Sandberg, 2014).
In addition, the (near) full stock inventory ideal means (almost per definition) that little
attention is given to carefully scrutinize the credibility and value of existing studies, and
therefore risk overlooking the huge and often problematic variability in the credibility
of existing studies included in the review. Although in theory we should have faith in
the credibility of existing studies (particularly those published in our top-tier journals),

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6 M. Alvesson and J. Sandberg

as many have noted, it varies quite significantly among studies. For example, in regard
to the replication crisis within social sciences, Freese and Peterson (2017) observe that
even studies aiming to mimic other studies are not necessarily successful in doing so,
indicating common problems of reliability. Many critical review articles also show that in
research areas where several hundred studies have been conducted, the studies have fun-
damental weaknesses and offer little of real value. A case in point is the leadership field.
According to a growing number of commentators, many, if not most, subareas of leader-
ship studies suffer from questionable assumptions, design and theoretical reasoning (e.g.,
Alvesson and Einola, 2019; Hunter, Bedell-Avers and Mumford, 2007; Fischer, 2018).
Van Knippenberg and Sitkin (2013, p. 45), for example, argue that ‘the vast majority of
transformational leadership studies have relied on a measurement approach for which
there is overwhelming evidence of its invalidity’. Hence, the varied credibility of studies
in the leadership field (as well as studies in other research domains) suggests that there is a
need to more carefully assess the identified studies before including them in a review and
using them as robust points of departure for knowledge advancement, something which
tend to be overlooked by advocating a (near) full stock inventory.

Assuming Author Neutrality

An additional assumption worth considering is author neutrality. For E&K the integra-
tive review comes with ‘an attitude’, but is based on neutral description: ‘at the basis of
integrative reviews lie descriptive reviews – representative summaries of the state of the
science’ (p. 11), and ‘we also argue that the insights or perspectives offered arise from the
review, rather than guide the review’ (p. 4, italics added).
The idea that the reviewed literature should ‘show the way’ is, however, problematic.
The reviewer is key in conducting the review and he or she cannot be completely neutral,
as indicated by the very diverse conclusions of review authors in the leadership field,
cited above. One may question the relationship between the review author doing some-
thing active – using judgement and creativity – and relying on the literature reviewed to
show the way. It is here important to ask questions such as what is paid attention to in
the review, what language is being used, and what is excluded from or downplayed in
the review? Similarly, do review authors take findings at face value or do they carefully
scrutinize and evaluate the findings? Are specific research groups or orientations being
privileged in the review? For example, are the research texts reviewed published only
or mainly in US journals, which is far from a neutral approach, even though it can be
legitimated through references to citation scores. Such citation scores are not always the
best quality indicator, but rather an outcome of what is in fashion, power relations, US
domination and the institutionalization of ‘must’ references. Hence, efforts by review
authors to appear neutral easily reinforce conservativism and thereby cement an existing
field or domain rather than opening it up for problematization and novel ideas.

Believing that Review Articles are a Good Thing

A final assumption inherent in E&K’s article and held by many other review authors is
that review articles are something good by nature. Arguably, review articles offer several
benefits. A review gives readers an overview, it facilitates learning from existing studies,

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 The Problematizing Review 7

it reduces the risk of missing much within the core field. Occasionally, some additional
knowledge can be produced through comparisons and synergy effects. As stated previ-
ously, some reviews, even though not framed as ‘critical’, point at fundamental shortcom-
ings within the areas covered (e.g., Hughes et al., 2018; Sandberg and Tsoukas, 2015;
Van Knippenberg and Sitkin, 2013).
However, review articles are not always beneficial but can instead be problematic,
making this type of work into a mixed blessing. Many review articles tend to strengthen
box thinking by overemphasizing integration and using seemingly robust but problematic
sorting devices. Review articles also function as an ordering mechanism of the research
community, in that people may feel instructed to master what is reviewed, not necessarily
to consider other literatures or ways of framing the field. You may, for example, relate
to the ‘leadership literature’, while disregarding studies on managerial work, power and
hierarchies. In the worst case, a problematic ‘over-ordering’ is produced by review au-
thors often acting as champions of their subtribes in the overcrowded place of academia,
where mass education has been followed by mass research and the resulting struggle for
attention, status and power (Alvesson and Sandberg, 2014). Here there is a temptation to
highlight order and the strength of a specific movement, and neglect the fact that labels
are sometimes mere vehicles and rhetorical resources for people to gather around and
use (Astley, 1985).
Hence, one could argue against that, rather than being a good thing, the integrative
review article is potentially harmful. Here we can point to the value of books, handbooks
and other collections of papers, allowing for more complex, nuanced and qualified re-
view treatment of broad themes; Burrell and Morgan (1979) and Morgan (1997) are
inspiring examples. A good scholar reads and writes books. The more influential social
science scholars have achieved their success primarily through books. Unfortunately, the
regime of the journal article and its often mainstreaming effects is dominating manage-
ment studies, and this may be reinforced by the popularity of review articles, often only
or mainly covering articles in frequently cited journals.

Summing Up
Triggered by Elsbach and Van Knippenberg’s thoughtful and well-informed article, we
have pointed to a number of basic issues that may provide food for thought when think-
ing about review articles. We suggest that careful attention is called for by themes of
labelling and ordering research domains, knowledge accumulation ideals, vacuum clean-
ing large sets of literatures, reliance on oversimplifying sorting and ordering signs, au-
thor neutrality and the possible privileging of integration at the expense of recognizing
variation. We do not want to overemphasize criticisms of review articles, but we do think
that any way of seeking to develop knowledge through them requires critical reflection
on their potential shortcomings.

AN ALTERNATIVE: THE PROBLEMATIZING REVIEW

Inherent in the reflections above are ideas for an alternative way of thinking about the
review publication. Based on those inclinations, in this section, we propose and elaborate

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8 M. Alvesson and J. Sandberg

the problematizing review as an alternative to the integrative review. Instead of integrating

existing studies using specific labels, such as ‘innovation’, ‘trust’, ‘identity’ and ‘leader-
ship’, the primary aim of the problematizing review is to re-evaluate existing under-
standings of phenomena, with a particular view to challenging and reimagining our
current ways of thinking about them (Alvesson and Sandberg, 2013b). The problematiz-
ing review is therefore based on different assumptions and ideals from Elsbach and Van
Knippenberg’s paper. Key features in a problematizing review can, however, be seen as
either a negation or a supplement to conventional ideas of the review article.
Significant for us is the use of broad and careful judgement: thinking through prob-
lems with ordering and, thus, normalizing ways of doing research; critically assessing the
quality of studies; and avoiding covering too much within a narrow terrain and instead
considering broader knowledge domains. A central ambition is to generate re-concep-
tualizations of existing thinking that trigger new ideas and theories. As we have already
presented some of the reasons for our alternative approach in the discussion of E&K – in
particular, that labels are unreliable indicators rather than robust signposts to a domain;
that the problem of inclusion/exclusion needs to be taken seriously; and that other pub-
lication forms are more open to the development of new ideas than the journal review
article – we will be fairly brief in elaborating them here. Specifically, our problematizing
review is based on four core principles: the ideal of reflexivity, reading more broadly but
selectively, not accumulating but problematizing, and the concept of ‘less is more’.

The Ideal of Reflexivity

A core principle underpinning the problematizing review is reflexivity. There are many
views on this matter (e.g., Alvesson and Sköldberg, 2018; Steier, 1991). Reflexivity, as
we define it, means actively and systematically trying to avoid taking conventions for
granted and simply reproducing and reinforcing them. It considers alternative ways of
working and writing than seeing a specific publication form (e.g., journal articles) or
the review domain as given. It also points to the central role of the researcher and the
research group, and emphasizes the need to mobilize a broad spectrum of intellectual
resources for understanding the forces that guide research behind the researcher’s back,
such as paradigms and fashions. It downplays or even rejects ideals such as rationality,
procedure, transparency, and being trustful of conventions. Reflexivity typically calls for
the researcher to read a limited number of texts carefully, to challenge his or her inter-
pretations by considering alternative perspectives and sources of inspiration, to work
with doubt and recognize intuition, and to aim for insightfulness rather than rigour or
pseudo-rigour (Alvesson and Sköldberg, 2018).
In a problematizing review, the author is guided by a constant consideration and oc-
casional questioning of assumptions, perspectives and vocabularies in order to come up
with, test and possibly suggest alternative ideas and ways of thinking about a phenom-
enon or domain. Awareness of the paradigm-bound nature of research is central here.
For example, the overwhelming majority of the leadership literature proceeds from ‘the
assumption that the employees sampled innately need or desire leadership’ (Hunter et al.,
2007, p. 436). However, one could see this need, desire or interest in leadership among em-
ployees as a false assumption, or as a more open issue, and even suggest that some people

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do not see themselves as followers and want to be spared leadership at work (Blom and
Alvesson, 2014). Assumptions about the leader-driven nature of relations between seniors
and juniors can also be highlighted and questioned by drawing attention to ‘the wholly
imbalanced view in the literature of the nature of agency, where leader agency is seen as
close to absolute while others are mainly passive and responsive’ (Tourish, 2014, p. 83).
The reflexive principle in the problematizing review, then, means a systematic and
ambitious effort not just to follow and build on a dominant logic – or the preferred vo-
cabulary and line of reasoning of the researcher her/himself – but to confront this with
alternative points of departure, vocabularies and modes of interpretation (Alvesson and
Sandberg, 2013b; Alvesson and Sköldberg, 2018).

Reading More Broadly but Selectively

A second principle central to the problematizing review is to read broadly but selectively.
As we discussed earlier, review authors often aim to cover a large amount of work (per-
haps too much) within a specific domain – sometimes everything that has appeared in
leading journals with the right keywords during a specific time period. This approach
addresses far too many studies for them to be treated in a thoughtful way, and often leads
to an emphasis that is too narrow. Crossan and Apaydin (2009) ambitiously covered 525
studies in their systematic review and also aimed to ‘fully understand all definitional
nuances, associated constructs and related models’ (p. 1155), which for us seem to be a
complicated and time-consuming undertaking.
The principle of reading broadly but selectively in the problematizing review rejects
the full store inventory approach, and its neglect of the highly varied, and often problem-
atic, credibility of existing studies. It suggests a more limited and careful set of readings,
but also a combination of readings where the researcher is not ‘going native’ by reading
too much in a limited field, possibly with strong conventions. Reading according to the
problematization approach may be based on, for example, a three-level approach. At
the first level, the review author focuses on some core and representative readings within
the targeted (sub) domain. The author could, for example, focus on, say, ten recognized
core studies in the domain targeted, and then, ten to twenty other texts, perhaps being
picked at random out of a sample. Some people in the domain (informally or through
a panel arrangement) could then be asked to recommend additional studies outside this
sample and, based on this, ten or so more studies could be added which are perceived as
valuable to the collection of texts being carefully read or re-read. Our key point is to have
a revealing but manageable sample – allowing for critical scrutiny and insight generation
rather than aiming for vacuum cleaning.
At the second level, the author shifts focus and considers some broader texts, ad-
dressing, say, five to ten significant texts, either in the immediate neighbourhood of
the targeted domain or more broadly relevant for the perspectivation of the review
domain. Reading outside what is conventionally viewed as the targeted domain partly
aims to recognize and counteract the problems of the arbitrariness of a domain for
review. Sometimes, neighbouring domains may be seen as distinct or the same, based
on different preferences. Transformational and charismatic leadership are, for example,
seen by various authors as the same (Van Knippenberg and Sitkin, 2013), as similar or

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10 M. Alvesson and J. Sandberg

overlapping (Sashkin, 2004), as siblings (Jackson and Parry, 2008), or as quite different
(Wilson, 2013; Yukl, 1999). Even a reviewer treating them as distinct could consider some
key works within the literature not labelled exactly as the review indicates. For example,
many versions of organizational culture may be highly relevant for understanding issues
more fashionably addressed under labels like ‘organizational identity’ and ‘institutional
theory’ (Alvesson and Robertson, 2016; Hatch and Zilber, 2011).
At the third level, the author could consider some (re)readings of classic or important
social science studies with a broader, and possibly more indirect, bearing on the research
domain targeted for review. Reading more indirectly relevant work can encourage a
broader perspective on the review domain, and work as a counterpoint to engaging only
with sorting out details in framings of phenomena within a specific research box, such
as strategy-as-practice, careers, institutional complexity, followership or whatever the re-
view is focusing on. A few thought-provoking and different (meta)perspective (re)readings
of ‘peripherally relevant’ literatures could then inspire reflexivity and critical reflection
(Alvesson and Sköldberg, 2018). One could, for example, look at a list of the 20 to 30
most cited social science (or management theory) writings and choose a few that appear
broadly relevant to, but not a precise fit for, one’s specific review domain. The important
thing is to support a more intellectual and scholarly, less paradigm-bound and special-
ized, way of relating to a specific set of studies, providing an antidote for taking too much
for granted when reading often similar types of study. This could support a healthy dis-
tance and use of the imagination, while reducing the inclination to ‘go native’ in the re-
search domain within which the review author has perhaps been working for a long time.
To summarize, the point of reading broadly but selectively and with a considered
portfolio is to encourage review authors to be less subtribal and assumption-blind in
their orientations, and to reduce the risk of box thinking and taking the existing research
domain as given.

Not Accumulating But Problematizing

A third principle underlying the problematizing review is to question rather than trying to
identify missing pieces in the accumulating domain jigsaw puzzle. Most, if not all, review
publications include some elements of critical as well as creative thinking. E&K (p. 7) write
that ‘critical analysis involves careful examination and critique of the extant literature,
with an eye toward identifying themes, patterns, relationships, and gaps in understand-
ing. Creative synthesis, in contrast, involves integrating existing frameworks with insights
gained from the critical analysis to formulate a new perspective regarding the topic’.
These critical elements are, however, often rather moderate and sometimes barely seen
beneath the more salient ideals of being neutral, ordering and packaging large chunks
of studies, and letting them, without much questioning, show the way to new knowledge.
The conventional ‘critical analysis’ is often surface focused, with the eye attending to
what is visible rather than to the underlying assumptions and taken-for-granted ideas of
the established literature. These ‘unpostulated and unlabeled’ assumptions (Gouldner,
1970, p. 29) are, of course, much harder to detect, as the review author typically shares
a worldview with the literature being addressed.
Rather than undertaking a surface reading of a large volume of available studies, a
deep reading of the foundational texts, and of a moderate number of representative
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 The Problematizing Review 11

texts of a field, enables the author to better identify, articulate and challenge problematic,
taken-for-granted assumptions in a specific domain (Davis, 1971). The idea is, then, to
read sufficiently to come up with potentially new insights for novel theorizing. A prob-
lematizing methodology for such reading could include the following principles: (1) iden-
tifying a domain of literature; (2) identifying and articulating assumptions underlying this
domain; (3) evaluating them and focusing on more problematic or limiting elements; (4)
developing an alternative assumption ground with the potential to become the start of a
novel theoretical contribution; (5) considering it in relation to its audience (what is seen
as new, credible and interesting); and (6) evaluating the alternative assumption ground
(Alvesson and Sandberg, 2013b). The last of these is important in order to assess the
possibility of having a new, counterintuitive conversation with others in the field that will
inspire new ways of thinking on a subject (Patriotta, 2017).
As the reader may have noted, we have partly followed this problematization method-
ology in our review of E&K’s paper, identifying and challenging the authors’ assump-
tions. It is important to consider two interrelated issues when identifying a domain of
literature for problematization: the actual domain targeted and the specific texts chosen
for deep readings and re-readings. Identifying or constructing a domain of literature
provides a way in to picking some texts, but careful reading of these may inspire a revi-
sion of the literature domain that will be the final target of the research question. As we
have said, conventional, label-guided domain specifications may not be productive, due
to the hembig problem and the general difficulties of using labels as reliable indicators
of phenomena for targeting.
Hence, the problematization principle suggests a less strict focus on the analytics of the
surface material offered by the available literature, and its claims about ‘themes, patterns,
relationships, and gaps in understanding’, and a stronger focus on its paradigmatic as-
sumptions and ways of constructing reality. As this shift in focus can be quite difficult to
achieve, it calls for the mobilization of a wealth of resources, including time for ‘deeper’
thinking and support from intellectual sources other than those on the explicit subject
matter. Reflexivity is key here: what may be problematic and constraining in my and,
in particular, my research community’s way of thinking about this domain? Are there
alternatives that I (we) don’t consider? Can I (we) read literature or talk with people
offering an alternative view, providing support in understanding the possible arbitrari-
ness of the way we tend to do research, and produce a specific type of reasoning and
results? Reading too much in a subfield can easily lock the researcher into the research
box, making him or her strong on conventionality but weak on imagination and creativ-
ity. Some effort to undertake ‘out-boxing’ is therefore needed to liberate ourselves from
conventions and institutionalized ‘truths’. This typically calls for a certain distancing and
perhaps alienation from one’s research community and the in-boxing it tends to promote
(Alvesson and Sandberg, 2014).

Less is More
A final principle guiding the problematizing review is ‘less is more’. It emphasizes fewer
readings of a large number of studies, and more concentration on coming up with new
and unexpected insights. As indicated previously, the vacuum-cleaning ideal is prob-
lematic. Just because there is a wealth of studies does not necessarily mean that they
© 2020 Society for the Advancement of Management Studies and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
12 M. Alvesson and J. Sandberg

represent a wealth of valuable knowledge. Texts in a field often say more or less the same
thing, and an extensive reading of many articles may lead to a focus on minor variations
and distinctions while overlooking more basic elements. As we pointed out in regard to
leadership studies, many studies do not have very much to say as well as vary greatly in
value and credibility and should perhaps therefore be neglected or at least downplayed
rather than be the topic of a careful review. In the problematizing review, texts cannot be
quickly browsed through (except to check that they are broadly similar and adhere to the
same conventions); results cannot be taken more or less as given, and compared as if they
represented simple and robust building blocks in the manufacture of new knowledge.
Instead, more hermeneutical readings form a central part of the problematizing review,
involving critical scrutiny of how phenomena are constructed and their underlying as-
sumptions, together with searches for deeper meanings (Alvesson and Sköldberg, 2018).
In sum, the problematizing review proposed here does not aim to be distinctly critical
or to debunk a knowledge area. Instead, its overall aim is to combine critical and con-
structive considerations of a research domain, to open it up for serious consideration
and reconstruction in ways that help us think ‘better’ and differently about the world
and ourselves. In other words, a good review (which may include more or less signifi-
cant elements of problematizing) must help us move beyond both established scientific
and practical common-sense understandings of phenomena. Ideally, it should, at least in
some ways and when motivated, re-signify (Reed, 2011) or break with (Bourdieu et al.,
1991) established truth and/or expectations (Suppe, 1979) rather than merely reinforc-
ing and cementing already established research boxes. This may call for the use of other
forms of publication than the standardized review article, allowing for more exploratory
and emergent types of writing and publishing. We have tried to exemplify a non-con-
ventional tone in this article. Box-breaking or transcending work also calls for care and
self-critique, so the review is fair to texts used as triggers for new thinking. The idea with
the problematizing review is, of course, not to dismiss everything that has been done or
to problematize for its own sake. It is also important to highlight high-quality studies and
ideas. Thus, the problematizing review may in some ways reinforce conventional knowl-
edge development; in others, support more or less radical rethinking.

FINAL REMARKS
In this paper we have discussed some of the dominant assumptions underlying the inte-
grative review proposed by E&K, and indicated a set of alternative principles under the
label of the problematizing review. Our purpose has not been to argue for the inherent
superiority of the proposed alternative in comparison to the integrative review, although
we agree with many commentators on the need for more interesting and imaginative
studies (e.g., Alvesson and Sandberg, 2013a; Clark and Wright, 2009; Courpasson, 2013;
Davis, 2015; George, 2014; Patriotta, 2017; Starbuck, 2006). There are, as we see it, far
too many conventional studies basically saying more or less the same thing. Although we
regard the integrative review suggested by E&K as being of high value, it is important to
point to the shortcomings of any conceptualization and recipe for review publications –
as well as literature reviews more generally in empirical articles.

© 2020 Society for the Advancement of Management Studies and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
 The Problematizing Review 13

In the spirit of reflexivity, we acknowledge that the problematizing review we have

proposed may be criticized for several disadvantages and problems, such as for underuti-
lizing a whole set of studies in a knowledge area targeted for a review publication; for
focusing on underlying assumptions that are hard to detect; for allowing too much dis-
cretion to the researcher doing the review work; and for being too demanding. We also
acknowledge that there may be a problem if more energy goes into challenging assump-
tions than into working out and refining or testing well-founded and productive ideas
(Alvesson and Sandberg, 2013b). The pursuit of novelty and everyone wanting to de-
velop their own theory is not unproblematic. These critiques are valid, but they do not
prevent the problematizing review from being useful and relevant, at least in order to
expand the imaginary of how we think about, and work with, review publications. There
is broad agreement that, as management studies moves towards a stage of maturity, it
‘is increasingly in need of conversation starters, new ways of envisioning model readers,
and authors who are able to develop more imaginative text-building strategies’ (Patriotta,
2017, p. 758).
While dominant understandings of reviews use images like the review author as con-
struction worker or puzzle solver, we are more interested in their role as an artist, a detec-
tive, an innovator or even an anthropologist, supporting the innovative part of research
(Alvesson and Sandberg, forthcoming). These alternative metaphors highlight elements
such as creativity in terms of different perspectives, representations, hunting for hidden
clues in a set of texts, searching for possibilities of reinventing the targeted domain or
saying something truly novel, or looking at the tribe of academic researchers in a spe-
cific field and asking ‘what do these people think they are doing?’. They suggest ways of
doing something that is more creative in terms of offering interpretations and suggesting
new ideas based on both positive and critical readings of the existing literature. In some
cases, this may be seen as a modified version of the integrative review; in other cases,
the outcome may be better referred to as a problematizing review. Of course, there are
versions in between the extremes and different possible emphases on the integrative and
the problematizing in a review publication.
Here we need to consider problems of fragmentation and the need to sum up positive
lessons from a larger set of studies. Crossan and Apaydin (2009) advocate the systematic
review to counteract the fragmentation of a field and facilitate its consolidation. This
is important, but one could also make the case that conventional reviews often cement
box-thinking and reproduce taken-for-granted assumptions and conventions. As a way
to challenge compartmentalized thinking, there may be a need for studies that show
more clearly the variation and fragmentation in a field, and based on this, open up the
possibility of new framings and ways of structuring and disordering knowledge fields (or
jungles). Challenges may occasionally be better than more of the same kind of reviews,
reproducing core elements in established thinking.

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