Drafting your critical review

Box 3.15 particular, the factors influencing how academics and

practitioners worked together. Having undertaken her
Focus on student literature search and made brief notes on all those
research items she considered likely to be relevant, she began
to compile her Thematic Analysis Grid. An extract of
Developing a thematic analysis grid Fariba’s grid follows:
Fariba was interested in university-SME (small and
medium sized enterprise) partnerships and, in

Barriers to academia- Rigour and Engaged scholarship

practice partnership relevance debate
Bartunek JM (2007) Academic– Both sides need to
practitioner collaboration need value collaborative
not require joint or relevant working.
research: Toward a relational
scholarship of integration. Acad-
emy of Management Journal
50(6): 1323–1333.

Bartunek JM and Rynes SL (2014) Important to break Academics need to

Academics and Practitioners are down barriers. Need to take the initiative.
alike and unlike: The paradoxes address existing Responsibility lies with
of Academic-Practitioner relation- constraints. university researchers.
ships. Journal of Management
40(5):1181–1201.

Boyer EL (1990) Scholarship Professoriate place dis- Recognises universi- Scholarship of

Reconsidered: Priorities of the proportionate value on ties need to pre- engagement –
Professoriate. San Francisco, CA: scholarship of research. serve intellectual connecting and
Jossey-Bass Scholarship as prac- and political communities to enrich
ticed has little relevance independence. quality of life.
to wider society. Acknowledges
groups of stakeholders
working together to
identify problem and
Copyright © 2019. Pearson Education Limited. All rights reserved.

solve collectively.
Boyer EL (1996) The Scholarship Barriers could be (see above)
of Engagement. Bulletin of the addressed by universities
American Academy of Arts and valuing four scholarships
Sciences 49(7): 18–33. equally.

Hodgkinson GP, Herriot P and Management

Anderson N (2001) Re-aligning research should sat-
the Stakeholders in Management isfy double hurdle of
Research: Lessons from Industrial, rigour and
Work and Organizational relevance.
Psychology. British Journal of
Management 12 Special Issue
S41–S54.

113
Saunders, MNK, Thornhill, A, & Lewis, P 2019, Research Methods for Business Students, Pearson Education Limited, Harlow, United Kingdom. Available from:
ProQuest Ebook Central. [11 August 2020].
Created from cqu on 2020-08-11 16:39:27.

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 Chapter 3 Critically reviewing the literature

Box 3.15
Focus on student
research (continued )
Developing a thematic analysis grid
Barriers to academia- Rigour and Engaged scholarship
practice partnership relevance debate
Rynes SL (2007) Editor’s after- Academics career need
word. Let’s create a tipping point: is for papers in journals
what academics and practitioners practitioners rarely con-
can do, alone and together. tribute to/read.
Academy of Management Journal
50(5): 1046–1054.
Saunders MNK (2011) The man- Need to address practical Summarises these Only likely to occur
agement researcher as practi- tensions and constraints. as differences in when academics take
tioner – issues from the interface Some managers depre- focus of interest and initiative to engage.
in C. Cassell and B. Lee (eds) cate management measured out-
Challenges and Controversies in research, some academ- comes, methodo-
Management Research. New ics disdain practitioners. logical cynosure.
York: Routledge. 243–57.

Remember to be critical as you draft your review (Box 3.1) and ensure that what you
write relates clearly to your research question(s) and objectives (Box 3.2). In order to
improve the transparency of your review process, you should also explain precisely how
you selected the literature you have included in your review, outlining your choice of search
terms and of databases used. This is usually done at the start of the review and is essential
if you are using the Systematic Review methodology (Section 3.9). This can be thought of
as ‘Step 0’ of the literature funnel we outlined in Section 3.3. When you have completed
your first draft you can use Box 3.16 to evaluate its suitability for your project report.
Copyright © 2019. Pearson Education Limited. All rights reserved.

Box 3.16 ✔ Is your literature review organised thematically

around the ideas contained in the research being
Checklist reviewed rather than the researchers?
✔ Are your arguments coherent and cohesive – do
Evaluating your draft literature your ideas link in a way that will be logical to your
review reader?
✔ Have you used subheadings within the literature
✔ Does your literature review have a clear title,
review to help guide your reader?
which describes the focus of your research rather
✔ Does the way you have structured your literature
than just saying ‘literature review’?
review draw your reader’s attention to those
✔ Have you explained precisely how you searched
issues that are the focus of your research, in par-
the literature and the criteria used to select those
ticular your objectives?
studies included?
✔ Does your literature review lead your reader into
✔ Does your review start at a more general level
subsequent sections of your project report?
before narrowing down?

114
Saunders, MNK, Thornhill, A, & Lewis, P 2019, Research Methods for Business Students, Pearson Education Limited, Harlow, United Kingdom. Available from:
ProQuest Ebook Central. [11 August 2020].
Created from cqu on 2020-08-11 16:39:27.

M03 Research Methods for Business 08787.indd 114 23/03/2019 21:06