Analyzing influence of training and development for augmenting performance of Tencent China.
Chapter 2: Literature review
The second chapter might be a literature review, although again the structure will vary according to the precise topic selected and should be discussed at length with your supervisor. The literature review is something which confuses many students. In essence, the aims of a literature review are two-fold. First, it should bring the reader up to date on previous research findings in the field, with particular reference to your chosen topic. This can point towards areas of general agreement (or disagreement) among researchers, highlighting what different studies say about your chosen topic. To use the example of outsourcing once more, it may be the case that previous research has yielded important findings on success and failure of outsourcing initiatives (even if some studies disagree), but there have been recent changes in the market and regulatory environment within a particular sector (say, the banking sector) which raise new and unanswered sets of questions which your research will proceed to explore. The central aim is to pull out the key ideas and findings from past research and “˜locate’ your study within that broader body of knowledge. Secondly, where your chosen topic is related to particular policies or strategies, your literature review should consider relevant policy/strategy and/or technical documents, in addition to the more “˜academic’ literature. For instance, in the case of the outsourcing topic, the literature review might also assess the ways in which different types of organisations (both public and private) have attempted to develop strategies that seek to use outsourcing to achieve rapid organisational transformation and explore the extent to which they have met with any success in doing so. In other words, some dissertations may have a “˜policy/strategy review’ as well as a “˜research review’ as part of the overall literature review.
In summary, then, a literature review should synthesise others’ work, highlighting the key themes to emerge from other studies and applying these to your own research. You should not treat the literature review as simply a summary or précis of policy documents, journal articles and books: it should not be, for example, “˜everything I know about organisational change’, or “˜everything I know about development policy’. Instead, the literature review must be related to the tightly defined research questions or hypotheses which your study is intended to address. In other words, it requires your own assessment of the key findings of earlier work which relates to your topic. A literature review has to be comprehensive, covering policy debates as well as theoretical and conceptual issues (i.e. academic literature). It is also important that you concentrate on literature which is of direct relevance to your work; ignoring related material of only marginal relevance. You might well select (or create via synthesis of multiple sources) a conceptual model or framework that you will apply to your research. If not in this chapter, then it would likely appear in the next. It is also vital that you avoid plagiarism. If you lift ideas, or quote a short passage from others’ work – which is, of course, perfectly acceptable – you have to acknowledge the source by full and proper referencing. A useful starting point for literature reviews is to read a small number of core texts, and then trace back the more detailed articles cited. For example, if your dissertation is on “˜The role of public-private partnerships in healthcare in Nigeria’, you might begin your literature review by looking at broad texts on healthcare, before focusing-in upon more detailed (and directly relevant) work cited in these texts (e.g. other research on public-private partnerships). You should also try to make use of a full range of sources for literature review material. In particular, learn to use the library search facilities. In particular, make use of the bibliographic databases and other sources that offer pointers to journal papers that you can readily access online. You may also find Google Scholar useful for the same purposes.
Please use reference within 5 years, and use most scholar articles please.