Literature Review Seminar

The Literature Review Seminar

Seminar, Master

Prof. Dr. Gerit Wagner
Fakultät Wirtschaftsinformatik und Angewandte Informatik
Universität Bamberg

Literature Review Seminar

Prior knowledge of literature reviews, topics, and expectations

  • What is your topic and research question for this seminar?
  • What are your expectations for the seminar?
  • Did you work on a literature review before?
Literature Review Seminar

Your instructor: Prof. Dr. Gerit Wagner

  • Sustained fascination for literature reviews for 10+ years

  • 2014-2018: Disseration on the scientific impact of literature reviews

  • 2020-2023: Postdoctoral fellowship at HEC Montréal (Canada):

    • worked with Guy Paré, Ph.D., a frequent co-author and mentor, who serves as a Senior Editor for Literature Reviews at JAIS
    • served as a TA for the literature review seminar for Ph.D. students at five universities in Montréal
  • I have published 20 papers related to literature reviews (out of 30)

  • I started developing CoLRev, a Python tool for literature reviews

Literature Review Seminar

Why literature reviews are exciting (I)

Literature reviews are essential to respond to key trends

  • The rapid growing volume and variety of research output, e.g., the EQUATOR network lists over 600 guidelines for different research methods
  • Expectations to exercise critical judgment of prior research, e.g., retracts, papers in predatory journals, theories or methods that have shortcomings, papers that are written by tools like genAI
  • The need to avoid reinventing the wheel, e.g., cases like the grit construct, which is basically identical with consciensciousness

In the future, the ability to synthesize, organize, and critically assess prior research will become even more essential.

Literature Review Seminar

Why literature reviews are exciting (II)

Literature reviews can make a variety of original contributions, ranging from

  • conceptual contributions that could never be accomplished in an individual study
  • to reviews that aggregate empirical evidence, and address common errors that cannot be eliminated in empirical studies (e.g., measurement error or publication bias)
Literature Review Seminar

Example: Media Synchronicity Theory (Dennis et al. 2006)

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Literature Review Seminar

Example: Review of the IS Success model (Petter et al. 2008)

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Literature Review Seminar

Why literature reviews are exciting (III)

  • Exemplary contributions can have a profound impact (e.g., Vial 2019 is cited 2,000 times per year)

  • There are open challenges, such as

    • Differences and synergies across disciplines,
    • Design of LR software to manage data, AI, and collaboration,
    • Coping with massive input and addressing urgent demands (e.g., COVID reviews)
Literature Review Seminar

Learning objectives

Acquire a broad understanding of

  • the goals and types of literature reviews
  • the steps of the process
  • the qualities of a good review paper
  • the tools available

Outcome

Literature Review Seminar

Administration

Contact: gerit.wagner@uni-bamberg.de

Consultation hours: via calendly
Web: https://www.uni-bamberg.de/digital-work

Materials: available via VC: https://vc.uni-bamberg.de/course/view.php?id=67999 (password: xa4Oidap)

Literature Review Seminar

Materials

Slides

  • Presentation slides will be made available for download.
  • You are expected to take complementary notes and read the recommended literature.

Literature

  • Literature and complementary materials will be listed at the end of each lecture.
  • Materials will be made available via VC whenever possible.
  • Reading of complementary materials depends on your interest and ambition.

Acknowledgement:

  • Guy Paré: the materials are largely based on his literature review seminar.
Literature Review Seminar

References

Dennis, A. R., Fuller, R. M., & Valacich, J. S. (2008). Media, tasks, and communication processes: A theory of media synchronicity. MIS Quarterly, 32(3), 575-600. doi:10.2307/25148857

Petter, S., DeLone, W., & McLean, E. (2008). Measuring information systems success: models, dimensions, measures, and interrelationships. European Journal of Information Systems, 17(3), 236-263. doi:10.1057/ejis.2008.15

Rando, H. M., Greene, C. S., Robson, M. P., Boca, S. M., Wellhausen, N., Lordan, R., ... & COVID-19 Review Consortium. (2021). SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19: An evolving review of diagnostics and therapeutics. Manubot. link

Vial, G. (2019). Understanding digital transformation: A review and a research agenda. The Journal of Strategic Information Systems, 28(2), 118-144. doi:10.1016/j.jsis.2019.01.003

- What is important for a good literature review? Ask about topics, methods papers, challenges

My background: phd, publications, postdoc and phd seminar, guy pare: mentor and SE, colrev, jit award photo: montreal with its many universities: all sending phd students to the literature review seminar

This slide is more on the reaction, the next more on active contributions sheer volume of research: - our capacity to synthesize it will become much more important - our capacity to organize (make sense of prior research) - our capacity to scrutinize (and sort out the bad apples) reinventing the wheel (grit - meta-analysis) https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0092656620301100 https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2016-29674-001 Note: in the search: connect to jangle-fallacies (generally the lack of controlled terminology) understanding cumulative and non-cumulative episodes (not as clear as with Kuhnian scientific revolutions, but senior scholars know: if you use a particular theory that it is old/has been criticized...)

literature review; systematic review; umbrella; meta-analysis; overview of reviews; meta-synthesis; meta-ethnography; scoping review; literature survey; Review paper; Background; State-of-the-art 1

Rationale: impossible for an individual empirical study because there would be too many variables that must vary (just imagine an experiment!) Especially at group/organizational levels where research designs are much more limited (no experiments) Especially macro-level theories. Similarly: RBV

January 26, presentation: February 1

Mich vorstellen: - Montreal - Regensburg ## Your expectations for the lecture "Introduction to Digital Work" Studiengänge? Semester? Wer plant den Master zu machen? Jemand, der nicht in Bamberg bleiben möchte? Wer schon im Auslandssemester/Wo? Wer schon ein Praktikum? Wer hat ein klares Berufsziel? Was interessiert Sie an Digital Work, was würden Sie gerne lernen? # Learning objectives - Understand the historical, organizational, and societal drivers of change in digital work. - Familiarize with a repertoire of techniques, methods, and policies for effective digital work at the levels of individuals, teams, and crowds. - Apply, adapt, and critically discuss these methods in different practical contexts. - Appreciate different forms of scientific knowledge, theories, and methods prevalent in research on digital work. critically discuss: understand where they come from/how they were developed (based on what evidence/theories) Critically discuss ethical challenges associated with the future of work. Modulkatalog: Nach Abschluss des Kurses haben die Studierenden ein Verständnis über die Veränderungen, Gestaltungsbereiche und Auswirkungen digitaler Arbeit. Insbesondere können sie ein Repertoire ausgewählter Methoden, Designprinzipien und organisationelle Policies erklären und situativ anwenden. Zudem können sie die Evaluation einzelner Maßnahmen diskutieren und sie mit diesem Hintergrundwissen effektiv und verantwortungsvoll in der Praxis einsetzen.

# Agenda - Introduction - Drivers of change in digital work - Development of the course structure (interactively) - Assignment: 3x (each major block) Teaching: when I teach, I teach - you have my attention.