MIL practitioner guide: chapter 4

Chapter 4: Literature review practice for managerial intellectual learning

Managerial intellectual learning (MIL) relies heavily on literature review. In this regard, some literature review is a leisure reading activity, sometimes to intellectually explore management topics to make an overall grasp of them, while at other times to gain a deeper understanding of a specific management topic. More often than not, the literature review exercise is carried out as an agile literature review for specific applied business research projects or managerial problem-solving to address a particular management concern in the real-world setting, see Table 1. The literature review exercise is attentive to developing a sophisticated understanding of a chosen management topic, see Table 2:

Table 1: A practice guide on the agile literature review approach

The steps	Tasks and deliverable	Relevant resources and support
Step 1 - ideas search	Tasks ·      Identify relevant key words on the formulated management topic statement that responds to the management concern statement made Literature search ·        ·      Browsing and screening contents found ·      Ideas snowballing Deliverable A folder for storing the relevant literature, primarily in pdf form	·      Suggestions of relevant academic ideas for key word search from academic advisors and supervisors ·      Library facility, notably e-library for accessing academic publishers' websites
Step 2 - ideas collection	Tasks ·      Collect ideas from the literature and save them into one or more documents on different topics ·      Quick reading of the literature materials collected from Step 1 Deliverable A set of study notes on a chosen set of topics	·      Computer ·      Brief evaluative comments and advice on the content of the study notes from academic advisors and supervisors ·      e-resources on study notes [for illustration]
Step 3 - ideas categorization	Task ·      Review ideas on each study note on a particular topic and group the ideas from the study note into a number of categories that are relevant for addressing one or two management concerns under examination Deliverable A set of categories for grouping the ideas in each study note	·      e-resources on cognitive mapping-based literature review ·      e-resources on mind mapping-based literature review ·      e-resources on coding in qualitative research
Step 4 - ideas systemic diagramming	Task ·      Link up idea categories to produce a theoretical framework/ ideas systemic diagram Deliverable A theoretical framework/ ideas systemic diagram	·      e-resources on theoretical framework ·      e-resources  on systemic diagramming ·      e-resources on coding in qualitative research

Table 2: Examples of statements on management concerns and associated management topics

Management concern statements Characteristics ·      Concerns/ issues-focused ·      Expressed in the language of the client system's world ·      Felt by one or  more stakeholder groups in an organizational setting	Management topic statements Characteristics ·      Solutions/evaluation-focused ·      Expressed in the language of the academic world ·      Felt by the researcher to be relevant for working out some recommendations with good actionable value
Examples on management concern statements	Examples on management topic statements
Example 1: Product range of  the company too narrow and mature [felt by the senior management of the company]	To evaluate and strengthen the innovation capability of the company.
Example 2: Company's staff in low morale due to  the poor organizational atmosphere associated with the upcoming business process outsourcing [felt by the senior management and the employees of the company]	To evaluate how the organizational atmosphere of the company affects its employee morale and the resultant employees' job performance.
Example 3: Salesmen unwilling to share customers' information with their colleagues in their company [felt by the owner of the business]	To evaluate and strengthen the teamwork  of the company so as to improve customer satisfaction.
Example 4: Some managers considered too harsh to their subordinates [felt by some of the company's middle managers]	To evaluate and improve the management styles and leadership styles found in the company.
Example 5: The  middle managers and their subordinates  of the company are considered unwilling to  learn and adopt innovative ideas [felt by the top management of the company]	To evaluate how the existing corporate culture of the company affects its innovation capability.

There are a number of four distinguishing characteristics of the literature review practice for MIL, however. They are:

1. Strongly rely on using diagramming techniques to construct theoretical frameworks in the literature review exercise.

2. Strongly prefer to underline the systemic nature of the theoretical frameworks constructed via the literature review exercise.

3. Willing to construct an array of theoretical frameworks, some primarily as an academic exercise focusing on the management topic per se, while others as knowledge structure with actionable value to address specific management concerns in a particular organizational setting.

4. Favour to conduct the literature review based on critical systems thinking.

In short, literature review in MIL serves the twin purposes of (a) intellectual learning to build up managerial competence and (b) applied business research and associated managerial problem-solving. Its time-frame can be short-term or long-term.

Further readings

Ho, J.K.K. 2014. "A Review of the Multi-perspective, Systems-based (MPSB) Research with an MPSB Knowledge Supply Chain Framework" European Academic Research 2(1) April: 705-729.

Ho J.K.K. 2017. "On the agile literature review approach for practising managers: a proposal" Systems Research and Behavioral Science, Wiley [to be published].

Ho JKK. 2017. "Cognitive mapping for literature review ebook 2017" April 16, Joseph KK Ho publication folder (URL address: http://josephkkho.blogspot.hk/2017/04/cognitive-mapping-for-literature-review.html). [visited at July 28, 2017].

Ho, J.K.K. 2017. "Some additional conceptual clarification of the recently proposed agile literature review approach (ALRA)" Joseph KK Ho e-resources October 28 (url address: http://josephho33.blogspot.hk/2017/10/some-additionalconceptual.html).