1. 1. Objectives of theory-mining reviews
Theory development with systematic literature reviews
Chitu Okoli for ICT University, Fall 2015

2. What is a literature review?
“A systematic, explicit, [comprehensive,] and reproducible method for identifying, evaluating, and synthesizing the existing body of completed and recorded work produced by researchers, scholars, and practitioners” Fink (2005 pp. 3,17)
Systematic
Follows a rigorous procedure
Explicit
Explains what is done, how and why
Comprehensive
Attempts to include all relevant literature
Reproducible
Sufficient detail that others could do the same thing
This point is controversial, since it assumes a positivistic research epistemology

3. What is theory?
“An integrated collection of explanations about the relationships between one or more pairs of concepts that represent real-world phenomena under specified conditions; such explanations might be accompanied with predictions and implications for intervention and action” (Okoli 2015 TMR)
Concepts (What?)
Distinct things that vary in value, temporal order or state
Relationships (How?)
How concepts are linked to each other
Explanations (Why?)
The reason why the relationship exists
Bounding conditions (Who? Where? When?)
Under which conditions the relationships are valid

4. Variance, Process and Systems theories (Burton-Jones et al. 2014)
Variance theory
Concepts are constructs (measurable things, whether physical or abstract)
When the value of concept A varies, the value of concept B varies accordingly
Process theory
Concepts are events that either occur or don’t occur
Event A is required in order for event B to subsequently occur
Systems theory
Concepts are systems or sub-systems within other systems
If concept A is a system and concept B is a subsystem of A, then the theory could be that when the state (values of properties) of B changes, then the state of A (values of properties other than B) changes accordingly

5. Theory-mining review (TMR)
A literature review that extracts theoretical concepts from its constituent primary studies as a key aspect of the synthesis
It might also extract and synthesize:
the relationships between these concepts
the explanations of these relationships
the bounding contextual conditions of the extracted relationships.
At the very minimum, it extracts concepts

6. Why is theory important?
Theory is important for theory-oriented disciplines
Natural sciences
Medicine
Physics, biology, chemistry
Social sciences
Management, information systems, communication studies
Public health, nursing
Education, sociology, psychology
It is not so important for non-theory oriented disciplines
Engineering and computer science
Humanities (arts, literature, law, etc.)

7. Rigour vs. Relevance Rigour Relevance Theory-oriented disciplines
Following detailed, appropriate methods to assure that your results give reliable, confident knowledge
Relevance
Asking research questions that give meaningful answers to ordinary people (non-scholars)
Theory-oriented disciplines
Rigour is paramount; relevance sometimes suffers
Non-theory-oriented disciplines
Relevance is paramount; rigour sometimes suffers
Rigorous and Relevant
We should strive to always be both rigorous and relevant
Always start with relevant research questions (questions that matter to practitioners, not just scholars)
Use rigorous research methods to answer these questions, so that people (both scholars and practitioners) have confidence in the results

8. Why are theory-mining reviews important?
For theory-oriented disciplines, TMRs help extract and synthesize the core elements of theory from primary studies
In my study of 98 lit reviews in information systems, TMRs had more citations than other kinds of literature reviews
Even when controlling for journal reputation
Even when controlling for author seniority
Citations can indicate how valuable a lit review is to other scholars

9. Three kinds of TMR Theory-landscaping review (TLR)
Focuses on a theme, a topic or a single concept as its scope, but not on theoretical relationships.
Theory-contending review (TCR)
Focuses explicitly on theoretical relationships (at least two concepts) as the scope of the review, but without empirical verification
Theory-testing review (TTR)
Tests theoretical relationships (at least two concepts) using empirical secondary data

10. Dissemination targets: where can you publish your TMR?
Standalone lit review
Protocol: Conference poster session, or regular article
Pilot study: Conference regular article
Completed study: Journal article
Parts of a doctoral thesis
TLR: literature review chapter
TCR: literature review chapter plus theory development chapter
TTR: Usually only if doctoral dissertation is a meta-analysis, in which case the entire dissertation would be a TTR

11. For a standalone review, what kind of TMR should I do?

12. Can I frame my research topic in theory structure?
What kinds of concepts am I dealing with? (Burton-Jones et al. 2014)
Variance: values that vary
Process: events in a temporal order
Systems: systems with sub-systems
None of the above: themes, topics, ideas
Do not artificially or prematurely set bounding conditions
For example, be wary about building theory that supposedly applies only to one country or region
Why does your theory apply only in that country, but not in others?
In contrast, it is perfectly fine to propose a general theory, and then test it only in one country
In this case you would state your limited scope of testing as a limitation, but you are not obligated to argue a different theory
In particular, if the only thing you do is apply existing theory to a new country, that is not a significant contribution to knowledge

13. Sources
Burton-Jones, A., McLean, E.R., and Monod, E. Theoretical perspectives in IS research: from variance and process to conceptual latitude and conceptual fit. European Journal of Information Systems, Forthcoming, (September 2014).
Fink, A. (2005). Conducting research literature reviews: From the Internet to paper (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Okoli, Chitu (TMR). The view from giants’ shoulders: guidelines for developing theory with theory-mining literature reviews. Working paper, 2015.