Research Methodology

Lecture No : 3

Recap lecture 2
Broad problem: the entire situation where
one sees a need for problem solving and
research.
Literature Review: To understand the
problem more detail information is needed
Different sources of information is gathered
from books, reports, published research
papers etc.

Recap lecture 2
More aspects of research are exposed.
More variables which play an important role
are uncovered.
This allows us to develop a more robust
theory.
We start documenting a comprehensive
review
To conclude we are able to identify the gaps
and develop our precise problems statements.

Lecture Objective
Revisit at literature review
Why literature review is important
Methods of writing a review
Contents of a review
Developing a theoretical framework
Identify the relationships and the theory
supporting the relationship
Describing Variables
Describing what are variables and the
different types

Purpose of Literature Review

Every research study requires the researcher to
review pertinent literature on the topic.
1. To avoid unnecessary duplication of research.
2. To identify variables that may influence the
problem
3. To identify promising procedures and
instruments
4. To limit the problem.

Two steps in conduction literature review

Survey of literature (search)
Documenting of the literature (write)

Survey of literature
Survey different sources
Books
Research Articles
Theses
Conference preceding
You can obtain them from
Libraries
Internet
Online databases (Full text, abstract)

Documenting the literature

Three activities are involved while
documenting the literature which you
have surveyed
Method of documenting the list of reviewed
articles. (Modes)
Referencing and quoting the studies (Cite)
Organizing and documenting the contents
of the reviewed articles (writing the review)

Method of documenting the list of

reviewed articles.
References / Bibliography is a list of work that is
relevant to the main topic arranged in an
alphabetical order.
The difference between reference list and
bibliography is that reference list is a subset of
the list of articles which have been referenced in
the research.
Bibliography is a list which includes all the
referenced and non referenced articles in your
research but are relevant to your research

Examples of Modes of Reference listing

There are different modes of referencing in business
research. For example the APA (Publication of Manual
of the American Psychological Association), Chicago
Manual Style, Harvard style, Turabian Style.
Each manual specifies with examples how books,
newspaper, research journal are to be referenced in
your research. Following are the example in APA style

Referencing and quoting the studies

Cite the references in the body of the paper using
author-year method of citation; i.e. surname of
author(s) and the year of publications
E.g. Kaleem(2004) has shown.
In the recent studies of employee motivation
(Freeman,2007 ;Mitnzberg, 2007) it has
In 1997, Kyle compared the different models of
motivation..
As pointed out by (Tucker & Snell, 1989),..

Referencing and quoting the studies

(cont )

Organizing and documenting the

contents of the reviewed articles
While writing the review the text needs to arranged
in the following manner
1. Introduction -

Importance of the subject ,

states the purpose or scope of the review
2. Define the key concepts
What are the different definitions found in the
literature. Which definition is better or much closer
your research objective.

Organization of a
Literature Review:
3. Critical review Describe the relationships between the different
variables identified in the previous studies

Do not list one study after another, but rather classify,

compare & contrast as they relate to your problem
statement.
Organize the review around different themes.

4. Summarize
states the status of what exists on the topic and
identifies the gaps which provide the rationale for your
study.

Example of a short Review

Pg 44

Example of a short review

Introduction to Organization effectiveness
Identified the problem and the purpose
No consensus on the how to conceptualize and
measure OE
Summarize the previous work and identify the gaps
in the literature
Variables from different streams related to the
OE uncovered
Leading to the forming of the research questions

 Questions
What could be the dimensions used for
measuring OE ?
What factors effect the OE ?
Once the research questions have been stated
then one is ready to develop a theoretical frame
work of their research

 While developing your theoretical frame work

you basically
Theorize on the bases of your belief that how are
certain phenomena's are related.
So theoretical framework is a representation of
your beliefs on how certain phenomena ( or
variables or concepts ) are related to each
other(model) and an explanation of why you
believe that these are associated with each other
(theory)

Theoretical Framework
So there are two components to theoretical
frame work
Identification of variables and their
relationship
Describing the relationship with arguments
While identifying the different variables we need
to differentiate between the different kinds of
variables

Variables
Any thing that can take on different or varying
values is a variable
Values can be different at various times for the
same object or person or at the same time for
different objects or persons E.g.
Production units (Employee 1 (10 units on Monday) Production
units (Employee 1 (11 units on Tuesday)
Production units (Employee 2 (12 units on Monday)
Production units (Employee 2 (10 units on Tuesday)
Attendance at department x on Monday(10), Tuesday(2)

Types of Variables

Independent
Dependent
Moderating
Mediating

Types of Variables
Dependent
(Criterion Variable)
primary interest
Describe or explain the variability or predict it.
We study what variables influence dependent
variable
So by studying these we might able to find a
solution of the problem
E.g. Sales are low , employee loyalty is dropping

 Independent
(Predictor variable)
Which influences the dependent variable
The influence might be positive or negative
When independent variable is present the
dependent variable is also present.
With each unit of increase in independent
variable there is an increase or decrease in
the dependent variable
E.g. Advertising on sales, recognition on
loyalty

 Moderating (surfaces in between the

independent and dependent at a given time)
Mediating (Effects the relationship between
independent and dependent)

Exercise : List the independent variable

A manager believes that good supervision and
training would increase the production level of
the workers.

Recap
Literature Review involves searching and
documenting
There are different formats of Documenting (APA)
There is a structure of review (importance,
objectives, definitions, relationships identified,
gaps)
Theoretical framework is representation of your
belief on how variables related and why
Variables are of 4 different kinds