For a thesis in MBA thesis, a literature review serves as a backbone. A literature review provides a comprehensive overview of existing studies, which lays the groundwork for your research. As well as identifying gaps and establishing the context for your investigation. To ensure that your thesis is well-founded and valuable enough to contribute meaningfully to the academic and business communities, conducting a thorough literature review in thesis writing is a must. 

The Purpose of a Literature Review in an MBA Thesis

Multiple purposes in an MBA thesis are served by a literature review. A good literature review serves a number of purposes, such as providing a theoretical foundation, justifying the need for your study, and most importantly, showcasing your understanding of the subject. The reason that students are required to critically analyse existing research is that by doing so, they underscore gaps, trends, and contradictions that they aim to address in their thesis. In addition to these qualities of a good literature review, if your literature review is well-structured, it can strengthen your argument and enhance the credibility of your research

Steps to Write a Comprehensive Literature Review

Step 1: Delineation of the Research Question

The first step that you must take to craft a comprehensive review is to delineate your research question lucidly without any verbosity. The attributes that should be present eminently in your research question are that it should be very precise, highly focused, and congruent with the pursuit of your thesis. If your research question is well-defined, it will serve as a compass to navigate you in the ocean of sources to identify the most relevant studies and theories that will form the bedrock of your literature review. 

Step 2: Cognising of the most Pertinent Sources

In the first step, you have established your research question; the next step is gathering pertinent sources. You should look for peer-reviewed articles, books, and reports, and for this, you can take the help of reputable databases such as Google Scholar, JSTOR, and business journals. For a comprehensive literature review in a thesis, these reliable sources provide a strong foundation, as well as ensuring that your MBA thesis is built on credible and well-researched data.   

Step 3: Organise Themes and Trends

In the above two steps, you have delineated your research question and then collected relevant literature. Now is the third step, which is to organise the sources, but this organisation should be based on themes, methodologies, or chronological order. If you keep things organised, it means you group similar studies, which are helpful in identifying recurring patterns and drawing meaningful conclusions. Let’s understand this with an example, if your MBA thesis focuses on digital marketing strategies, you can make themes like social media marketing, consumer behaviour, SEO trends, etc., and can easily categorise the studies you have gathered accordingly. Following this structured approach is one of the best MBA writing thesis tips to streamline the research process. 

Step 4: Critically Analyse and Synthesise Information

A literature review is not something that summarises the existing research. A literature review of a thesis is crucial as it requires critical analysis and synthesis. A literature review is a document of the thesis where the strengths and weaknesses of a variety of studies that are pertinent to the research question are evaluated, methodologies are compared, and the point is discussed on how they relate to your research question. This is one of the most crucial steps that ensure that the literature review is sagacious and contributes volume to the academic discourse. A literature review can be one that merely restates existing knowledge.  

Step 5: Craft the Literature Review

Writing is not the first but the last step of the process of crafting the literature review. This is the step that presents all the knowledge and efforts you have made to present this comprehensive literature review. In this final step, you have to structure your literature review into a well-organised document. There are three main sections that must not be forgotten by a researcher to add to the literature review. Here are these three, typically consisting of main sections:

• Introduction: This is the first section of the literature review in which you should provide an overview of your research question and the pursuit of the literature review
• Body: This second section of the literature review is the main. In this section, you should discuss various themes, trends, and critical analyses of existing studies.
• Conclusion: This is the last section where you summarise all the key findings, identify research gaps, and explain how your study contributes to the field.

If you follow these steps on how to write a literature review, you will be able to compile an impactful document that strengthens your MBA thesis. 

Tips for Documenting a Literature Review

1. A systematic approach should be used for source selection.

In order to ensure that your topic has comprehensive coverage, you should be methodical in selecting your sources. To provide a balanced perspective, you should use a mix of seminal works and recent studies.  

2. Underscore Gaps in Extant Research

It is crucial that your gaps exist in the literature because they serve the purpose of justifying the need for your research. You should discuss the areas where existing studies fall short and how your MBA thesis aims to fill these voids. 

3. Maintain a critical and Objective Tone

You should adopt a tone while analysing literature that is both objective and critical both simultaneously. You need to steer clear of personal prejudice and give a fair assessment by recognising the strengths and limitations of earlier research.  

Conclusion

There is no doubt that crafting a comprehensive literature review is a daunting task for students, but this cannot be avoided because, for a strong MBA thesis, this is quintessential. A well-structured review establishes the research context, evaluates existing literature critically, and underscores the voids that your study addresses. Many students keep wandering around to seek expert guidance for fulfilling the purpose of beginning a well-researched and compelling thesis. In this situation, students can fearlessly opt for MBA thesis help that can streamline the literature review process. If you rigidly follow the above-mentioned steps and tips, you can document an impactful literature review that elevates the quality of your MBA thesis.