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Business Research Level 4 HUE

Chapter 4:
Reviewing the Literature
Intended Learning Outcomes (ILO's):
a-Knowledge and understanding:
State the tools in business research for analyzing and measurement. (A10)
b-Intellectual skills:
Examine ideas and viewpoints clearly of business research methods. (B9)
d-General skills:
Practice continuous self-learning, cognitive and intellectual development (D4)

literature review
 One of the essential preliminary tasks when undertaking a research study is to go through
the existing literature to acquaint yourself with the available body of knowledge in your
area of interest.

The literature review is an integral part of the research process and makes a valuable
contribution to almost every operational step.
 The literature review is designed to demonstrate the researcher's knowledge of a
particular subject area, field, and discipline.
 This includes key terms, ideas, theories, vocabulary, and of course inspiring
researchers and research within the specific field.

How does it help?

 In the initial stages of research, it helps you to establish the theoretical roots of your
study, clarify your ideas and develop your research methodology.

 Later in the process, the literature review serves to enhance and consolidate your own
knowledge base and helps you to integrate your findings with the existing body of
knowledge.

Literature review has the following functions:

1. It provides a theoretical background to your study.
2. It helps you establish the links between what you are proposing to examine and what has
already been studied.
3. It enables you to show how your findings have contributed to the existing body of
knowledge in your profession. It helps you to integrate your research findings into the
existing body of knowledge.

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In relation to your own study, the literature review can help in four ways. It can:
1. Bringing clarity and focus to your research problem
 The literature review plays an important role in shaping your research problem because:
 the process of reviewing the literature helps you to understand the subject area better
 thus helps you to conceptualize your research problem clearly
 precisely and makes it more relevant and pertinent to your field of enquiry.
 When reviewing the literature:
 you learn what aspects of your subject area have been examined by others,
 what they have found out about these aspects,
 what gaps they have identified
 what suggestions they have made for further research

2. Improving your research methodology

 Going through the literature acquaints you with the methodologies that have been used
by others to find answers to research questions similar to the one you are investigating.

 A literature review tells you:

 if others have used procedures
 methods similar to the ones that you are proposing,
 which procedures and methods have worked well for them
 what problems they have faced with them.

3. Broadening your knowledge base in your research area

 The most important function of the literature review is to ensure you read widely around
the subject area in which you intend to conduct your research study.
 It is important that you know what other researchers have found regarding the same or
similar questions, what theories have been put forward, and what gaps exist in the
relevant body of knowledge.

4. Enabling you to contextualize your findings

 Obtaining answers to your research questions is comparatively easy: the difficult part is
examining how your findings fit into the existing body of knowledge.

 How do answers to your research questions compare with what others have found?
 What contribution have you been able to make to the existing body of knowledge?
 How are your findings different from those of others?

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 Undertaking a literature review will enable you to compare your findings with
those of others and answer these questions.
 It is important to place your findings in the context of what is already known in
your field of inquiry.
How to Review the Literature
 If you do not have a specific research problem, you should review the literature in your
broad area of interest with the aim of gradually narrowing it down to what you want to
find out about.
 After that, the literature review should be focused around your research problem.

There are four steps involved in conducting a literature review:

1. Searching for the existing literature in your area of study.
2. Reviewing the selected literature.
3. developing a theoretical framework.
4. developing a conceptual framework.

First: Searching for the existing literature in your area of study

 To search effectively for the literature in your field of enquiry, it is imperative that you
have at least some ideas of the broad subject area and of the problem you wish to
investigate, in order to set parameters for your search.

 Next, compile a bibliography for this broad area.

 There are three sources that you can use to prepare a bibliography:
a. Books
b. Journals
c. Internet

b. Journals
 You need to go through the journals relating to your research in a similar manner.
 Journals provide you with the most up-to-date information, even though there is often a
gap of two to three years between the completion of a research project and its publication
in a journal.
 You should select as many journals as you possibly can, though the number of
journals available depends upon the field of study –certain fields have more journals
than others.

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c. The Internet
 In almost every academic discipline and professional field, the Internet has become an
important tool for finding published literature.
 Through an Internet search, you can identify published material in books, journals, and
other sources with immense ease and speed.
 An Internet search is carried out through search engines, of which there are many,
though the most commonly used are Google and Yahoo.
 Searching through the Internet is very similar to the search for books and articles in a
library using an electronic catalogue, as it is based on the use of keywords.

Second: Reviewing the selected literature

 Now that you have identified several books and articles as useful, the next step is to start
reading them critically to pull together themes and issues that are of relevance to your
study.

 Unless you have a theoretical framework of themes in mind to start with, use separate
sheets of paper for each theme or issue you identify as you go through selected books and
articles.

 The following example details the process.

 Once you develop a rough framework, slot the findings from the material so far
reviewed into these themes, using a separate sheet of paper for each theme of the
framework so far developed

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 As you read further, go on slotting the information where it logically belongs under the
themes so far developed

 Keep in mind that you may need to add more themes as you go along

 While going through the literature you should carefully and critically examine it with
respect to the following aspects:

 Note whether the knowledge relevant to your theoretical framework has been
confirmed beyond doubt.

 Note the theories put forward, the criticisms of these and their basis, the
methodologies adopted (study design, sample size, and its characteristics,
measurement procedures, etc.), and the criticisms of them.

 Examine to what extent the findings can be generalized to other situations.

 Notice where there are significant differences among researchers and give your
opinion about the validity of these differences.

 Ascertain the areas in which little or nothing is known the gaps that exist in the body
of knowledge.

Third: Developing a theoretical framework

 Examining the literature can be a never ending task, but as you have limited time it is
important to set parameters by reviewing the literature in relation to some main themes
pertinent to your research topic

 As you start reading the literature, you will soon discover that the problem you wish to
investigate has its roots in several theories that have been developed from different
perspectives

 The information obtained from different books and journals now needs to be sorted under
the main themes and theories, highlighting agreements and disagreements among the
authors and identifying the unanswered questions or gaps

 You will also realize that the literature deals with a number of aspects that have a direct
or indirect bearing on your research topic
 Use these aspects as a basis for developing your theoretical framework

 In writing about such information, you should start with the general information,
gradually narrowing it down to the specific.

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 Let's look at the following example which is about developing a theoretical framework
for the relationship between mortality and fertility.

Fourth: Developing a conceptual framework

 The conceptual framework is the basis of your research problem
 It stems from the theoretical framework and usually focuses on the section(s) that
become the basis of your study

 Whereas the theoretical framework consists of the theories or issues in which your
study is embedded,

 the conceptual framework describes the aspects you selected from the theoretical
framework to become the basis of your inquiry.
 For instance, in the previous example, the theoretical framework includes all the
theories that have been put forward to explain the relationship between fertility and
mortality.

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