Structured literature review methodology

Andrew Armitage and Diane Keeble-Allen

5. Conclusions

The paper has identified the diversity that the use of SLR addresses within the management sciences and

presents that this approach offers a strategy for dealing with the fragmented ontological and epistemological

tensions that exist. Within the management field, this is exacerbated further, by the methodological status of

management sciences concerning the theory versus practitioner debate that pervade its literature. The

subsequent call for a pragmatic melioration of perspectives, that recognises and combines ‘soft’ and ‘hard’

issues of the management landscape is perhaps the way forward [Tranfield et al, 2003]. As Denyer and

Tranfield [2006] note:

‘Existing management research will not contribute to management practice if individual studies simply

accumulate in academic journals. In many social science fields tight coupling of the science base to

policy and practice has involved reviewing fields of literature in order to synthesis and convey

essential collective wisdom from existing research studies to professional practice’.

Based upon the evidence and experiences to date from the field, however, we are suggesting that the

application of SLR to small scale projects at undergraduate and master’s level is possible. However, the

‘standard approach’ to conducting a SLR, as identified by Denier and Tranfield [2006], when applied to

studies that involve the single researcher needs to modified into the more manageable research strategy, for

example a Rapid Structured Literature Review [RSLR]. Whilst acknowledging the rather ‘directive approach’

of the RSLR strategy presented in this paper, it is argued that it has produced a more fulfilling and richer

experience for students who are frustrated in applying the former SLR since they cannot access primary data

sources when completing their dissertation research projects.

The development of the RSLR has also revealed, and encouraged a more rigorous approach to accessing

and mapping out a subject area, that goes beyond the ‘normal depth’ that can be achieved in a taught

module. It is suggested that ‘forcing’ students to follow the RSLR strategy has paradoxically ‘freed up’ and

extended their thinking because it has taken them to places in the literature that they were not aware of, or

realised was connected together, within a social context and historical development of their subject. If the

strictures of the RSLR strategy presented in this paper should be criticised, that this seems a small price to

pay, if it achieves a more ‘rigorous’ approach when undertaking management research. This is because it

provides the foundations and platform upon which to challenge students to become clearer and more critical

in their thinking. These are the tenets upon which management research is founded.

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