Making Literature Reviews Work: A Multidisciplinary Guide to Systematic Approaches

Rob Dekkers is a Reader in Industrial Management at the Adam Smith Business School (University of Glasgow). He has convened workshops and delivered seminars on literature reviews for all disciplines, and provides research seminars on other research methods, too. In addition to publishing literature reviews, he has (co)authored books, edited books, chapters in edited books, journal publications, contributions to conferences and reports, totalling more than 170. He currently chairs the Early Career Researchers and Doctoral Training Programme for the International Foundation for Production Research; in addition, he is actively involved in the mentoring of early career researchers. His activities are driven by inter-disciplinary research interests in manufacturing systems, manufacturing strategy, innovation and technology management, new product development, and industrial networks (incl. supply chains); furthermore, his activities are often inspired by system theories and evolutionary (biological) models. He holds a Master’s degree in Mechanical Engineering and a doctoral degree, both from Delft University of Technology; and held various positions in industry before embarking on an academic career. Lindsey Drylie Carey is a Senior Lecturer at the Glasgow School for Business and Society, Glasgow Caledonian University. She is actively involved in research in the area of consumer behaviour and sustainability, particularly within the context of ethical and organic products. She has a specialist interest in Research Methods and teaches the subject at the Masters and Doctoral level. An emerging area of research focus is well-being and social media, particularly food blogging. She has presented on these topics at conferences and published in peer-reviewed academic journals. She is also an external examiner, a reviewer for academic journals, member of the scientific committee of various conferences and is frequently invited tocomment on consumer and retail issues in the UK’s national press. Peter Langhorne is a Professor of Stroke Care at the University of Glasgow, UK. His research work has focused on the effectiveness of different treatment strategies for stroke patients, including service delivery (e.g. stroke units and early supported discharge) and stroke rehabilitation (e.g. early rehabilitation). This has involved the use of systematic review and meta-analysis methodologies for complex interventions. He is a previous co-chair of the Cochrane Collaboration and coordinating editor of the Cochrane Stroke Group.

• Introduction.- Objectives and Positioning of [Systematic] Literature.- Quality of Literature Reviews.- Developing Review Questions.- Search Strategies for [Systematic] Literature Reviews.- Setting Inclusion and Exclusion Criteria.- Principles of Meta-Analysis.- Meta-analysis in Action: The Cochrane Collaboration.- Other Quantitative Methods.- Principles of Qualitative Synthesis.- Methods for Qualitative Analysis and Synthesis.- Combining Quantitative and Qualitative Syntheses.- Reporting Standards for Literature Reviews.- Data Management and Repositories for Literature Reviews.- Writing Literature Reviews.- Publishing Literature Reviews.-  The Dissenting Voices.