Sample Selection in Systematic Literature Reviews
by Janet Salmons, Ph.D., Research Community Manager for SAGE Methodspace
A feature topic in the Organizational Research Methods journal, Rigorous and Impactful Literature Reviews, explores methodologies for conducting review research. Some of the articles are open access, the others are available until April 12, 2023. Methodspace is highlighting this useful collection with a series of interviews and related resources.
So many articles - how do you choose?
Before journals were made available electronically, searching for relevant literature was an article-by-article process in the library. Alternatively, you had to dig through journals obtained from the subscriptions you purchased. Today’s academic researchers find articles through databases accessible online.
Each option has its advantages and challenges. If reliant on print journals, access might have been limited to those that corresponded to the disciplines associated your institution’s curriculum. When your library didn’t subscribe to a journal you wanted, you would have to request an inter-library loan and wait for a paper copy to arrive by mail. In other words, the process might slow, but targeted.
Today’s researchers have the opposite challenge: with a few clicks you have access to journals from across disciplines and across the globe. How do you decide which databases to use, how do you sort through the abundance of resources available, and ultimately how do you choose which studies to include in your literature review? What articles should you read in entirety, and which should you skim? Clearly, today’s researchers need a strategy!
While researchers who collect data from human participants are familiar with the need to develop a sampling strategy, review researchers may not understand what is involved. Martin Hiebl offers guidance in this article, “Sample Selection in Systematic Literature Reviews of Management Research,” and related interview. His recommendations about sampling will help you save time and improve the quality of your review research.
Dr. Martin Hiebl is Professor of Management Accounting and Control at the University of Siegen, Germany, and Visiting Professor at Johannes Kepler University Linz, Austria. His research focuses on management accounting and control, risk management, family businesses and small businesses, and contemporary research methods.
Learn more!
Feldermann, S. K., & Hiebl, M. R. (2020). Using quotations from non-English interviews in accounting research. Qualitative Research in Accounting & Management, 17(2), 229-262. https://doi.org/10.1108/QRAM-08-2018-0059
Hiebl, M. R. (2023). Literature reviews of qualitative accounting research: challenges and opportunities. Qualitative Research in Accounting & Management. https://doi.org/10.1108/QRAM-12-2021-0222
Hiebl, M. R., & Richter, J. F. (2018). Response rates in management accounting survey research. Journal of Management Accounting Research, 30(2), 59-79. https://doi.org/10.2308/jmar-52073 (subscription only)
Pielsticker, D. I., & Hiebl, M. R. (2020). Survey response rates in family business research. European Management Review, 17(1), 327-346. https://doi.org/10.1111/emre.12375
More Methodspace Posts about Review Research and Literature Reviews
Critical appraisal of research papers is a component of everyday academic life, whether as a student as part of an assignment, as a researcher as part of a literature review or as a teacher preparing a lecture. Learn more from this post.
Missed the Methodspace webinar “Analyzing Published Literature Across Paradigms and Disciplines”? View it here and find related resources.
Bondy Valdovinos Kaye, co-researcher for “The impact of algorithmically driven recommendation systems on music consumption and production - a literature review,” offers insights about the literature review process.
What is the difference between a literature review and a state of the science review? See an article by Dr. Joan Dodgson.
In this interview David Antons and Oliver Salge discuss the roles humans and machines can take to plan and conduct computational literature reviews.
In this interview Dr. Marc Anderson explains how and why to use citation context analysis to track impact of scholarly publications over time.
Dr. Brian Fox explains why systematicity is important in literature reviews.
In the article “Theorizing Through Literature Reviews: The Miner-Prospector Continuum” Dermot Breslin and Caroline Gatrell pose an intriguing question: do you approach the literature review as a miner or as a prospector? They discuss options in an interview.
How do decide what literature you need for a review? See this post featuring an interview Martin Hiebl and related open-access article about sample selection.
Garima Sharma and Pratima (Tima) Bansal discuss ways to engage with managers, professionals, or practitioners to learn from the literature using a systematic review process.
In this interview Dr. Herman Aguinis and Dr. Ravi Ramani discuss the article they wrote with Dr. Nawaf Alabduljader, “Best-Practice Recommendations for Producers, Evaluators, and Users of Methodological Literature Reviews.”
Find tips for organizing and synthesizing methodological sources for your literature review.
In this interview Dr. Matthew Cronin discusses the article he wrote with Elizabeth George, “The Why and How of the Integrative Review.”
How can you use published literature as data? In this Methodspace interview Dr. David Denyer explains how and why to use review research.
A critical step in planning and designing research entails reviewing literature to situate it in a research tradition.
Want to design and plan a review study? Find open-access examples of systematic reviews, meta-syntheses, meta–analyses, and integrative literature reviews. Also, learn more with related SAGE books.
Review research has become a credible and legitimate form of scientific inquiry in various fields of science including management and organizational sciences. Find open-access articles with practical advice about planning a review study.
Find an open-access guide to archival research and links to archives you can visit online.
What kinds of documents or archived materials fit your study?
Dr. Helen Kara offers suggestions for taking an ethical approach to your literature review.
The process for researching literature on research methods is somewhat different from the process used for researching literature about the topic, problem, or questions. What should we keep in mind when selecting methods literature?