The impact of length of contract on employee productivity

Ch 2. LITERATURE REVIEW (Approximately 25% of total word count)-3000

Do NOT include any word for word quotes in this chapter – paraphrase into your own words and of course cite the original source.   

Also DO NOT include any “lists” – there is no place for lists in a Masters literature review. 

INTRODUCTION

Your chapter needs a half-page introduction to tell the reader the content of the chapter – before you begin the debate.

MAIN BODY OF THE CHAPTER (ABOUT 3 SUB-HEADINGS IN TOTAL)

Analytical review of contemporary (this means mainly post 2016) ACADEMIC literature (predominantly journal articles) specifically related to the research question.  This needs EVERY paragraph to have multiple references to different relevant, contemporary, academic sources.  Use the electronic journals library & Google Scholar.  Use sub-headings as appropriate to make things easy to follow.  DO NOT use third level headings please – they will make your work too fragmented!

RESEARCH GAP & CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK

Based on the above discussion -what is the specific gap that you have identified in theory that this research will (at least partially) address?  Use lots of relevant references here.

CHAPTER 2 SUMMARY

A half-page summary at the end to remind the reader what they have just read.

This chapter will typically have about 5 sub-sections (including the Introduction & Summary).  Try to not go over this number, otherwise your work will look too fragmented.  And remember – no sub-sub-sections or extra little headings please!

Organise the chapter around CONCEPTS, not around individual papers or authors.

You need to be writing two paragraphs per page, with multiple sources used in each paragraph.  Here’s an example of a snippet from a literature review:

The role of narrative and stories is becoming increasingly recognised within organisational studies as a means of understanding a range of phenomena (Brown et al., 2017; Hawkins and Saleem, 2016).  In particular, narrative is informing both conceptualisations of identity, and methods of researching it.  A narrative conceptualisation of identity proposes that identity is storytelling (McAdams, 2020): identity is the self as reflexively understood by a person in terms of their biography (Giddens, 2018) and the ability to sustain, develop and adapt a narrative over time to provide a sense of unity and purpose (Mallett and Wapshott, 2019; Watson, 2019; Watson, 2018).  A narrative theory of identity also emphasises the role of narrative as an essential form of socialisation.  Individuals learn how to speak and act in social situations by learning to tell stories in forms which are recognisable to others (Czarniawska, 2020; Riessman, 2017), both common narrative trajectories such as a ‘beginning’, a ‘low point’, a ‘climax’ and  an ‘ending’ (Ashforth et al., 2019; Gergen, 2011) and locally prescribed forms (Gubrium and Holstein, 2016). 

You need to engage with the material to tell the reader a story, not just present things as unconnected facts.  And, don’t cite the same few authors too many times …! (probably twice is the maximum in this chapter).   

When constructing paragraphs/sections in your literature review, use this guide to help:

Information – what are the facts?

Importance – why is this important for your field of study?

Implications – what are the implications for your specific research?

Remember to use Google Scholar & the university’s databases to find relevant, contemporary academic journal articles.