Week 4 – The Literature Review

1. Introduction
A literature review is a key component of any academic research study. The literature review will
help you understand the theoretical underpinnings of your study and serve as the theoretical
basis for your research. Also, it will help you develop an in-depth understanding of existing
knowledge in the area of your research topic, frame your topic, and it will guide you plan and
execute your research. Finally, it will help you evaluate your findings and your contribution to
existing knowledge on the research topic.

This week’s notes will explain the nature and purpose of the literature review and it will
introduce you to the literature review process. The weekly notes will explain the importance of
conducting a critical literature review and outline the elements and characteristics of a critical
literature review. Finally, the weekly notes will give you practical guidance and examples and
will explain what the University of Suffolk is looking for in a literature review.

1.1 Topic Learning Outcomes

During this topic you should be able to achieve the following learning outcomes:

LO1. Understand the importance and purpose of the literature review in the design of a
research project

LO2. Reflect on the processes required to develop an adequate literature review

LO3. Examine the variety of literature review sources and the plan to conduct an appropriate
literature review search

1
 2. Literature review definition and purpose
As part of your research project you will need to conduct and write a literature review on the
research topic. Hart (1998. p. 13) defines the literature review as “The selection of available
documents (both published and unpublished) on the topic, which contain information, ideas,
data and evidence written from a particular standpoint to fulfil certain aims or express certain
views on the nature of the topic and how it is to be investigated, and the effective evaluation of
these documents in relation to the research being proposed”. According to Torraco (2005,
p.356) the literature review “critiques, and synthesizes representative literature on the topic in
an integrated way such that new frameworks and perspectives on the topic are generated”.
According to another definition the literature review “should be a constructively critical analysis
that develops a clear argument about what the published literature indicates is knw and not
known about your research question” (Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill, 2015, p.72, citing Wallace
and Wray, 2011).

The purpose of the literature review is to help you develop an in-depth understanding of the
research topic area, to inform you about the current state of research in the field and of open
questions and issues related to the topic, to inform you about the methods that have been used
to conduct research in the topic area and to provide the background and theoretical justification
for the research project (Randolph, 2009; O’Gorman & MacIntosh, 2015). What this means is
that for your literature review, you should not just collect some articles and summarise what
each of these articles is about. You should evaluate the content of the articles and assess its
relevance to your topic, you will have to synthesise the literature, constructively critique and
evaluate the research approaches and findings of various scholars, and to develop a
comprehensive review of the current state of what is known (and unknown) about your
research topic.

2
 3. Importance of the Literature Review

The literature review is a very important part of the process of completing a research project, as
it helps the researcher get an understanding of the field, the key theories, concepts, ideas and
debates that are related to the research topic. The literature helps the researcher get a good
sense of what is already known about the topic and what is not, and to understand the key
theoretical concepts related to the topic and provides the theoretical context and framework of
the research. Also, the literature review helps in generating and refining the research idea and
to define the research problem and the research questions. The literature review helps develop
an understanding of the methods that have been used to conduct research in the topic area, as
well as of the challenges and limitations of conducting research in the area. The literature
review will also give you a good idea of whether the research topic that you are considering is
an important and interesting topic or whether it is a controversial topic or an over-research
topic (O’Gorman & MacIntosh, 2015; Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill, 2015; Adams, Khan &
Raeside, 2014).

4. Types of literature review

O’Gorman & MacIntosh (2015) identify two types of literature review, namely narrative (or
traditional) and systematic. Research projects of the type that you will conduct for the purpose
of completing your programme of study typically conduct narrative literature reviews which are
critical reviews of the literature that aim at making sense of existing literature and of theoretical
knowledge on the topic area. Systematic reviews on the other hand are a structured approach
of identifying all relevant knowledge in the topic area and conducting systematic analysis of
existing knowledge.

3
Adams, Khan & Raeside (2014) discuss three different types of literature review: evaluative,
exploratory and instrumental. According to the authors, evaluative reviews focus on “providing
a discussion of the literature in terms of its coverage and contribution to knowledge in a
particular area” (p.42), exploratory reviews seek to “find out what actually exists in the
academic literature in terms of theory, empirical evidence and research methods as they pertain
to a specific topic and its related wider subject area (pp. 42-43), and instrumental reviews are
“used exclusively as source[s] of information on how to conduct a piece of research on a highly
specific research topic” (p. 43).
Another classification of the types of literature review by the University of Southern California
(2014) is the following:

4
Table 4.1 Types of literature review

Theoretical review examines “the corus of theory that has accumulated in regard
to the issue, concept, theory, phenomena”

Integrative review “a form of research that reviews, critiques, and synthesizes

representative literature on a topic in an integrated way such
that new frameworks and perspectives on the topic are
generated”

Historical review focuses “on examining research throughout a period of time,

often starting with the first time an issue, concept, theory,
phenomena emerged in the literature when tracing its
evolution within the scholarship of a discipline”

Methodological review focuses not “on what someone said [findings], but how they
came about saying what they say ‘method of analysis]”

Argumentative review “examines literature selectively in order to support or refute

an argument, deeply imbedded assumption of philosophical
problem already established in the literature”

Source: University of Southern California (2014)

5
 5. The literature review process
The literature review is an iterative process that will begin during the early stages of your
research project and continues throughout the entire research project. During the very early
stages of the research, the literature review will highlight research opportunities and it will help
you frame your research ideas and research problem. The interactive nature of the process is
very important during the early stages of the research as it will help you evaluate the research
topic through the critical lens of the main academic theories and frame relevant to the research
topic and through the lens of existing arguments and findings. through this process you will be
able to finalise your research problem and research questions (and hypotheses, when relevant).
Figure 4.1 below demonstrates the iterative nature of the literature review.

6
Figure 4.1 The iterative process of the literature review

Source: Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill (2015)

As mentioned above, your literature review should not be just a series of

paragraphs/summaries of articles/books/other sources that you have reviewed, but it should

7
critically evaluate the content of the sources and assess their relevance to your topic, and to
offer a synthesis and constructive critique of existing knowledge. In your literature review you
should aim to consider alternative views, including opposing views (when relevant). You should
follow a critical approach in conducting your literature review and you should apply your
judgement and expertise and review the sources with scepticism and a critical eye and you
should be willing to question what you read. Conducting a critical literature review means that
you should be able to identify merits and limitations in the literature and to understand and
demonstrate in your review how these are connected to your research. Your literature review
should take a critical approach involving critique of (Saunders, Lewis & Thornhill, 2015):

● the rhetoric
● tradition
● authority
● objectivity

Keep in mind as you conduct the literature review that this exercise is not a place where the
researcher expresses own opinions, but you are expected to make reasoned judgements about
the research area.

6. Structure of the literature review

You will be required to do a literature review for the research proposal that you will submit at
the end of this module and for your research project. For the research proposal, the literature
review will be a section of the proposal. For the research project, the literature review will be a
chapter of the final document. Literature reviews may follow different structures, depending on
the scope of the research project - for example, for large scale projects, the literature review
may be more than one chapter - and on the purpose for which they are written - for example, a

8
literature review may be a ‘stand alone’ document, and you will have come across literature
review articles which are published in various academic journals.

The structure of the literature review will depend on the programme requirements and on your
topic. However, typically, a literature review chapter should have an introduction, which will
outline the focus and objectives of the literature review, a main body, which will contain the
presentation, critique and evaluation of the literature, and conclusions, which will summarise
the key themes, the gap in the literature and emerging areas for further research, and will
highlight where your research will contribute new insights. In the main body of the review it is
useful to use themes to categorise and review the sources and to develop the theoretical
framework for your research topic. Remember that here you should not just summarise and
describe arguments and ideas from various sources, but you should explain, critique, evaluate,
synthesise, and compare and contrast (when relevant) existing knowledge (O’Gorman &
MacIntosh, 2015).

Saunders, Lewis & Thornhill (2015) are proposing a useful model of the literature review as a
funnel (Figure, 4.2), where authors and themes are intertwined to provide a comprehensive
theoretical discussion of the research topic. According to the authors, as useful way to construct
the literature review is the following:

1. “start at a more general level before narrowing down to your specific research
question(s) and objectives;
2. provide a brief overview of key ideas and themes;
3. summarise, compare and contrast the research of key authors;
4. narrow down to highlight previous research work most relevant to your own research;

9
 5. provide a detailed account of the findings of this research and show how they are
related;
6. highlight those aspects where your own research will provide fresh insights;
7. lead the reader into subsequent sections of your project report, which explore these
issues” (p.80).

Figure 4.2 Literature review

Source: Adapted from Saunders, Lewis & Thornhill (2015)

7. Search strategies and sources

You will review many different kinds of sources for your literature review, including journals,
periodicals, books, reports, conference proceedings, policy documents, magazines, web
resources, etc. It is important to check the credibility of a source before you decide to include it
in your literature review. For example, articles published in academic journals are considered
highly reliable sources, as these articles are usually peer reviewed. Books that you will find in
the online library are also considered reliable sources. Also, sources published by credible

10
organisations, such as government offices/bodies, international organisations, professional
bodies, credible media organisations, etc. are considered reliable sources. You should pay a lot
of attention to internet sources, as often information obtained on the world wide web may be
unreliable (Adams, Khan & Raeside, 2014).

The type of sources that you will use for your literature review will depend on your topic and on
the research problem and research questions. However, the following are usually common
characteristics of a good literature review for a Masters’ level research project:

● sources are mainly academic, usually a good selection of peer-reviewed academic

journal articles
● sources are relevant to the research topic
● sources are relevant to the methodology and data collection process that you are
planning to use
● sources are important (they make a significant contribution to knowledge about the
research topic) and recent. Is it not uncommon to also use earlier sources of literature,
when these make a seminal contribution on the research topic, but recent sources
should also be included to demonstrate up to date understanding of existing research on
the topic.

It will be useful to come up with a literature review search strategy. Before you begin your
literature search, it will be helpful to know the scope and parameters of your search. Also, it will
be helpful to have an idea of the key terms and search phrases that you are going to use, and of
the places that you are going to look for literature (e.g. which databases and search engines).
The online library and online databases will be the main places of your literature search, but you
should also consider the reference lists of journal articles that you have already used
11
throughout your study as they may also contribute significantly to your literature search. Also, it
will be helpful to determine some criteria for selecting your sources. For example, you may
want to use criteria such as time scale (how far back do you want your research to go?) or
geographical scope (if your topic has a geographical focus, you may want to include this as a
criterion in your search), etc.. Of course your strategy will adjust as you search the literature (for
example, although you may have aimed for a certain geographical scope, you may find that
there is not enough research focusing on that geography, in which case you would have to
broaden the scope of your search), so your strategy should be flexible enough to help you
identify adequate sources for your review.

References:

Adams, J., Khan, H.T.A. & Raeside, R. (2014) Research Methods for Business and Social Science
Students. 2nd Ed. Sage. India: New Delhi.

Hart, C. (1998) Doing a literature review: Releasing the social science research imagination.
Sage, London. Available at:
https://books.google.gr/books?redir_esc=y&id=FkXvY8oDFdsC&q=literature+review#v=snippet
&q=literature%20review&f=false [accessed: 19/08/2021].

O’Gorman, K. & MacIntosh (2015) Research Methods for Business & Management: A guide to
writing your dissertation. 2nd Ed. Goodfellow Publishers Limited. UK: Oxford.

Randolph, J. (2009) A guide to writing the dissertation literature review. Practical Assessment,
research, and Evaluation, 14 (13), pp. 1-13. Available at:

12
https://scholarworks.umass.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1219&context=pare [accessed:
03/10/2021].

Saunders, M., Lewis, P. & Thornhill, A. (2015) Research Methods for Business Students. 17th Ed.
Pearson Education. England: Essex.

Torraco, R.J. (2005) Writing integrative literature reviews: Guidelines and examples. Human
Resource Development Review, 4(3), pp. 356-367.

University of Southern California (2014) Organizing your social sciences research paper.
Available at: https://libguides.usc.edu/writingguide/literaturereview [accessed: 19/08/2021].

13